OTS 23: Discovering The Zones Featuring Leah Kuypers
- Jayson Davies
- Feb 4, 2019
- 34 min read
Updated: Apr 14
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 23 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In this episode, Jayson interviews occupational therapist and creator of the Zones of Regulation self-regulation program, Leah Kuypers. Leah has spent nearly all of her career working with children as both a private practice pediatric OT as well as a school-based therapist. But, it was during her Master's in Education program that she had an idea to develop a program simple enough for any school-aged child to understand. Based on 4 primary colors, the Zones of Regulation helps students to identify and express their feelings and how to react to these feelings.
Listen in to learn more about Leah and the fantastic program she has developed!
Links to Show References:
Have a question about the Zones Or Regulations? Shoot an email to info@zonesofregulation.com
The Zones Of Regulation Program on Amazon (Using this link helps us earn a small commission at no additional cost to you) - This is the book that started it all. If you want to learn how to incorporate the Zones into your practice, this is where to start.
Interested in learning even more about the Zones? Visit the website and sign up for a full day training. Leah offers both live and virtual training. There are also other items and games that can be purchased to go along with the book.
Get the Zones of Regulation app for your iPhone or iPad
Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
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Episode Transcript
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Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT schoolhouse podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hey everyone, and welcome to the OT school house podcast episode number 23 so happy to have you, whether you're in the car at the gym or just relaxing at home after work or maybe on the weekend, who knows. Just want to say thank you for joining us today. We have a special guest, but first, I want to just kind of give an invite to everyone out there to follow the OT school house, not just the podcast, but also on social media and our email list. We are on Instagram and we are on Facebook, and if you're on Instagram Facebook, sometimes we do some giveaways for some of our podcast. We have other giveaways that we've done in the past that we're looking forward to doing here in the future. But just joining us over there, we have a lot of kind of treatment ideas that we post regularly and some other cool stuff. So also on our website, if you are not already an email subscriber, you can become a subscriber to our website, and we have a nine page freebie. It's called gray space paper, and it helps you. It's helped mostly your students actually out with learning how to space and size their letters and words when it comes to handwriting. So please join us over there@otschoolhouse.com so we can get you signed up and get you some some really cool freebies that you can use tomorrow. With that, I'm going to keep this short and go ahead and introduce today's guest we have on Leah Kuypers. You may be familiar with that name, but you're likely definitely familiar with her program, the zones of regulation. It's kind of become a phenomenon. Psychologists use it. OTs, use it. Special education teachers use it. It's really awesome. I'm actually about to start up a program tomorrow as I'm recording this. It's something you can do in the classroom. And so we're going to dive into that. I'm so excited that Leah was able to come on, and she just kind of was so enthusiastic once I told her what we're doing here at the at the OT school house, and with the podcast, she was super excited to come on, and she wanted to share this. So kick back. Relax. If you're driving, keep your hands on the wheel. But here's Leah to talk a little bit about how she developed the zones of regulation program. Welcome Leah to the show. This is going to be a fantastic show. I've told a few people that you are going to be on, but I'm excited mostly to talk to you. So how are you doing today?
Leah Kuypers
I'm wonderful, and I appreciate you hosting me. Thank you for the invitation.
Jayson Davies
Definitely. So for those of you who are listening to this, this isn't going to be released until like February, but this is like the morning. What are we like, three or four days before Christmas? Yeah, something like that
Leah Kuypers
approach here.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. So how are the holiday season shaping up for you? Anything special going on?
Leah Kuypers
We are just looking forward to spending lots of time with family and friends and still have some last minute shopping to do. So absolutely, there's a lot on the plate, but.
Jayson Davies
Right, we always do. So, yeah, so, well, welcome again to the show. It's so glad to have have you. I've used your program for the last Oh, I mean, I've been an OT for six years now, and I learned about it probably in that first year being an OT at the school district I was at and starting to learn a little bit about it. So I've kind of used it on and off. And so I'm excited to get more information from you about it, but I want to start off first by, you know, just learning a little bit about you. I know as OTs, we tend to like to know about people, so tell us a little bit about like, what made you decide to be an occupational therapist?
Leah Kuypers
That's kind of a funny question, because I was in high school trying to figure out what I wanted to go on to college for and I was thinking healthcare. I took some of those aptitude tests, and OT came back as my number one recommendation on two different tests. However, I went to different pathway at the persuasion of my calculus and physics teacher, he encouraged me to go into engineering. Oh, wow. So I went on to the University of Wisconsin, Madison in their engineering program, and by the first winter break after the first semester, I was in tears. I just didn't see this as my career path. I was not enjoying my coursework, and I had declared a major as engineering, and at Wisconsin, you couldn't go undecided again. So in order to switch paths, I had to declare a new major, and they had an occupational therapy. Program, so I started up courses for the next semester with the OT pathway. That's kind of the way I came to be
Jayson Davies
Wow, that's an interesting pathway. When you switched over pathways, were there any other professions that you were kind of looking at, or was it just kind of, let's go OT?
Leah Kuypers
Yeah, I was looking education, occupational therapy. I was looking at design.
Jayson Davies
Design, yeah, as well, like art design, or what kind of design? Oh, okay.
Leah Kuypers
And in hindsight, what I realized I wanted to be was an industrial designer, not an engineer, but.
Jayson Davies
What is, what do you mean by an industrial designer?
Leah Kuypers
Like, who would construct and design? Say, a couch, oh, or Whoa, that would be fun. Along that line, right?
Jayson Davies
So do you think is it fair to say if you were not an occupational therapist, you'd be an instruction How do you say it again, Instructional Designer, industrial. Industrial Designer, sorry,
Leah Kuypers
I you know, I don't know if that's the case. I didn't figure out what it was until I met some people after college, and I was like, that's what I wanted to go to college for how the world works out that point, I was really bought into the path I chose, and I feel fortunate to have my ot degree perfect.
Jayson Davies
That's super cool. Well, I'm glad you're an occupational therapist. I'm glad everyone's an occupational therapist. So, so you went to Wisconsin, Madison, right? Yeah, that's badger. A badger. Yeah, very cool. And so you graduated with occupational therapy degree. And then what came next? What was your first job out of out of college?
Leah Kuypers
Yeah, so I was young. I just have my bachelor's in occupational therapy. I went on to sensory integration clinic in Chicago area. Worked there for a few years. Got burnt out, and that was a really kind of grueling position. I loved the families I worked with. I liked what I was doing, but the intensity, kind of the grind of it, was challenging, and it was hard to see the impact I felt with just seeing a client one day a week and sending them on their way. So I then opted to move into Chicago public schools and work in a school based setting, which I found a lot more meaningful and like that was my a better fit for me.
Jayson Davies
Oh, okay, so you started an SI clinic. Did you have any type of mentorship when you were at the SI clinic?
Leah Kuypers
Sure. I there was. It was a very heavily staffed OT department, so there was people there with a lot more experience who certainly pointed me in the right direction, gave feedback, but it was kind of also a throwing into the wolves situation, like show up for their first day of work. Yeah, I was what, 22 maybe, and there's a student there or a client there who's on my case load that day, and you just jumped right in, and I just was like, Ah, I just didn't feel totally prepared either.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that sounds tough, especially being a brand new graduate. So did you in school? Did you get a lot of sensory integration type of just knowledge from, you know, maybe your pediatric class, or?
Leah Kuypers
You know, some it's a whole nother thing when you're trying to talk to the child's adult parents, and, you know, sound like you're coming across confident and knowledgeable. So that was really intimidating for me. My field work experiences, I had a school experience, and then my level two pediatrics was in pediatric mental health state facility, so that did not have as much of the sensory integration piece to it, more the mental health, which I think probably steered me in the direction that I have woven today for my health. Path, but that was a population I found really fascinating and intrigued by. So the in college, while I was doing my ot coursework, I was a line therapist doing ABA work with a child with autism. And it was really that autism experience that got me that job at the clinic, as well as ot degree, obviously, but and they were really looking at me to create some more autism programming for that population and some groups for the clinic.
Jayson Davies
So it sounds like they wanted you to take kind of full plate, and you weren't quite ready for that yet. Being a new grade.
Leah Kuypers
I wanted me to bring the what was the Wisconsin autism project to the Chicago based area. Just, you know, wasn't quite prepared for launching something of that scale. I'm like, I was the bottom of the totem pole, as in the hierarchy of this organization, the one doing the, you know, the work with the kid. But there was lots of people directing me.
Jayson Davies
Exactly, giving you the mentorship that you actually needed, and they wanted you to, all sudden, kind of just be the lead and just not ready for that yet?
Leah Kuypers
Yeah. So then we we moved on, and that was a good choice. And I ended up in the Twin Cities area, Minneapolis, where is close to where I grew up, and I again moved into the school setting when my husband and I got married and we moved here, and that was then also just a really enriching experience. And I had some amazing mentors in that site who just were fantastic, and have really still are cheerleaders for me today. So.
Jayson Davies
Sorry, is that a school based? Or is that? Yeah, it was a school based.
Leah Kuypers
It was an all special ed district. So it was itinerant position, moving between lots of different sites where we might have a classroom in regular ed Elementary, but we would bus the students who were severe and profound into a classroom from around the county so that they could be educated together in a school with non disabled peers, but have the intense programming that they needed. So we had autism classrooms, severe and profound classrooms, and then we did have one school that was an all special ed school for the kids who had a federal setting for as their least restrictive environment to be educated in. And so these kids had a lot of the behavior challenges, the mental health challenges, the social emotional work was needed. So that was where that site I really gravitated to, and I ended up finding myself full time there the fourth year I was in that district, because the needs were just so intense and kept pulling me there.
Jayson Davies
So, when you were at that district, you said earlier that, you know, seeing a kid once a week in a clinic just kind of wasn't there for you. Did you have more flexibility to see the kids? Kind of, yeah, to the extent that you needed to.
Leah Kuypers
Right? And that was at that point where lobbying, that, you know, these kids are so intense, their needs are so profound, that they did have to have that consistency. It wasn't a one time a week consult with the teacher, but there some kids I saw, you know, daily, even where maybe they weren't getting minutes daily from me as the OT provider, but I was consulting with the teacher. I was in the classroom helping a different kid, so I could still keep my eyes on them and be supporting them.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I, I've been fortunate in the position that I have now to kind of do the same type of thing. You know, maybe I'm not seeing the kid directly multiple times a week, but on the same time I am in the classroom a few times, you know, twice a week or so. And can do the same thing where you have your, you know, you're just watching and you're seeing them, and a lot of times, you know, if we're only seeing them once a week, we only get to see them for that 30 minutes, and then we don't get to see what they really do in the classroom when they're getting ready to get on the bus or as they're getting off the bus in the morning. And so I think it's a blessing that for those who do have the ability to kind of take some time to be in the classroom. Them and kind of see what's going on, because you really get to see so much more, for sure.
Leah Kuypers
Yeah, pulling a student ot only gives you it gives you that opportunity to build that rapport and really focus in on some skills that you might be addressing, but you're missing so much of that big picture and how they're applying those skills and that support they might need to generalize, and how you can be coaching the staff in the classroom to carry over. I think building those relationships with the teachers the staff is just as important as the students, so that that work where we are doing has further extension beyond a therapy room.
Jayson Davies
No, you're absolutely right. I try, especially in the severe, profound classes, I try to do a lot of in the classroom, work with the kids, just because, I mean, you don't get that generalization. Sometimes you can work on a skill outside and then go back into the classroom and it's just not there. It's not happening. So, but before we get too far along, because you did kind of mention a little bit of your first few years out of college as part of the podcast, we do have a lot of new grads that often listen, and they often email and they ask me questions. Oh, what do you recommend for a new grad? You know, this is my first time in schools, or sometime it's someone that's switching over from a clinic setting into schools or from another setting into schools, and they often are just looking for a little piece of tidbit of information to help them get through their first year. What would you kind of say for that new school based occupational therapist, just a little piece of advice to help them get through the their first school year?
Leah Kuypers
Oh sure. I spend time building relationships with staff, with admin. I think that helped then me feel connected to the school, a bigger part of that community of the school, and I think that benefited my students greatly. Another thing I did was I just took a lot of continuing ed courses too, and I was just hungry for I hear about this or that, and I wanted to learn. I saw that my skills were helping, but there was so much more out there that I felt could be expanding upon that base that I had, and so I took a lot of courses beyond that, and I think that really helped me become more confident, better able to fine tune my therapy with each individual student, and, you know, customize it based upon what their needs were.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, do you remember any, any one course, or any few courses that just kind of stand out in your mind? We're like, you know, you probably don't remember the entirety of what they were about, but any that just kind of stand out.
Leah Kuypers
Sure, well, you know, let's see, I've been an OT now for o1 so a lot of them probably are not quite there. Executive functioning wasn't a term anyone was talking about, you know, yeah, eight years ago, autism was barely, you know, it was such a small population then. So I took a lot of courses and autism thinking of, you know, I oh gosh, I did the, I did a whole graduate certificate in autism spectrum disorder. Okay, so that was, you know, really profound. And, you know, I did Stanley Greenspan's floor time and learning about, I did therapeutic listening.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I don't, I've, Wow, it sounds like you were very busy.
Leah Kuypers
Well, now I've had a lot of years, add them all up, right? But so.
Jayson Davies
But that's great that you continue to learn, because that's part of the reason that we did the podcast was one because we wanted to learn for ourselves. Abby piranha, the other host, as well as myself, like we just kind of were in a rural district, and we didn't have a lot of opportunities to work with other occupational therapists the county would sometimes have, like, an OT meeting. You know, hey, school based OTs come here. But it was like at 1230 on a Tuesday, like, who can afford to leave work to drive a half an hour or an hour across the county? And I. And so, yeah, it just didn't work. So part of the reason was because we wanted to learn more, and we knew if we kind of started something, we would have to learn because we're putting information out there. But the other side of this, which is I'm already learning just in, you know, the 15 minutes that we've been talking is like how different things are from one school district to another school district, especially when you start crossing state lines and you're talking about stuff going on in in the Midwest and from California, I mean, some of the terms you're using, I mean, I can generalize and figure out what they are, but they're just different from California and hearing about like all special education schools, and it's just some things occur differently in different places, and so.
Leah Kuypers
Well, I I moved to California for a while too, and it was, yeah, just a very different looking for jobs. I, at that point, had my autism certificate, and I got my master's in education, which was a really nice compliment to the OT bachelors. And being that, I really saw my career path as a school based therapist, I felt like I could talk the language a little bit more with educators. But yeah, so my husband moved to California and were in Oakland for three years. And it's certainly a very different approach to therapy, the kind of therapy world. And I found there wasn't very many school based ot jobs. Rather, they were contracted in from outside agencies. So I ended up working for a private practice rather than a school at that point, for those years, and did a lot of group work as well after school groups.
Jayson Davies
Oh, really cool, because you were working with a private practice, so they wanted to do that.
Leah Kuypers
Yeah, but then I also had the school clients.
Jayson Davies
So I know there's a few people that do a similar type of thing. So was this a clinic that you would work in for a few hours a day, and then you would also travel to the schools? Or were the kids coming to the clinic? Or what did it look like?
Leah Kuypers
It was both. Yeah, it was communication works in Oakland. And we had, I had, I was on several students IEPs, so I had some of those daytime hours, some days where I would be itinerant and going to different sites. But then at about three kids would be off school, and then they would be coming into the center, and I was running self regulation, social emotional groups, as well as I would see some students, some clients, just individually, but most of it was group work. So it was a combination of both, in that position.
Jayson Davies
And so like you said, you moved from, you know, one part of the country to another part of the country, and you said it was different. Can you expand on that a little bit more? Like, how did you see it as being different?
Leah Kuypers
Well, like, you hit on, like the language, just the jargon. You know, I was like, Wait, what are you saying? Like, different acronyms, different ways we're talking about different populations, kind of what's trending in the schools in California versus back home. Like, for example, the certs model was something I learned about when I moved out to California, and the Hannon approach. And these weren't things that anyone was talking about back in the Midwest, and so that was kind of cool to say to my friends back home, you know, hey, check into these things. I think they're, you know, really nice compliments to what we're doing and and also, then just bringing things out to California that was in my tool belt that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that you were
Leah Kuypers
working with that I could mentor around and support them.
Jayson Davies
Very cool. Okay, so a second ago, you mentioned that you got your masters in education. Was that general education or special education, or was there an emphasis or something general education. Okay, so did that come with also a credential Then?
Leah Kuypers
No, no. So, because I'm licensed through the state, at the state's health department, so I, you know, have a professional license, I didn't want to be a licensed teacher. Rather, I thought it was so helpful to have that background now, because in occupational therapy school, we get trained with a very medical model, yet our number one employer are schools, and they work on an educational model. So do. I found this just really helped me understand more of that education theory and how to teach. You know, what we're doing as therapists is teaching skills. And it really made me think about my approach, how I'm setting things up, how I'm delivering that. How do we make it, you know, and certainly we are always talking about our meaningful occupations. But how do we turn these desires into that knowledge and demonstrate that performance and demonstrate that knowledge, and with the OT school fit, I just found that it helped me just see things in a different light, and like come at things from another angle to really, I think better deliver the services I was providing.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I mean, I often have contemplated going back to school and either getting another Master's or doctorate, and one of the areas that I've looked at is education, because, for the same exact reason, we're in schools, and I feel like, just like you said, we don't get that educational piece when we're in OT school. We don't learn a lot about what the public school system looks like. And unless you do a field work in schools, which I never did, you really don't get a whole lot. You get more that clinic based, if anything, with pediatrics. So I've contemplated that a little bit. One of the I don't know if you want to call it a buzz it's not really a buzz word, but it's a hot topic right now, is occupational therapy, or occupational therapists practitioners potentially being administrators in schools. I don't know if you've heard about this yet.
Leah Kuypers
Well, I considered this. Yeah, so when trying to figure out what to do, my master's, and I had all those graduate coursework credits for the autism certificate, and my district was reimbursing for doing partial credit reimbursement, so I was just, I was finding it so motivating to go back to school as now an adult, versus being in my teens and early 20s. And I was just like I said, I loved learning. I was hungry for knowledge and how this could help my caseload. And one of the roles I was really finding myself in in my district was not administration, but I was being pulled into a lot of planning meetings, organizational meetings at a district level to think about our students and how we're serving them and what kind of Programming we're offering. And I found myself a very powerful advocate for many of my students, and having those tough conversations with admin that I really contemplated doing that licensing. My hiccup was that in Minnesota, I was licensed through the Department of Health, and I would have needed to first get my teaching license and go through the student teaching process in order to get my admin license. And that was one barrier I saw to that. The other being, I think, you know, it's there's so many hard decisions I feel admin have to make, and I just want the students to have it all, and I have a hard time living with, you know, anything less than what I feel like they deserve. And I think there's just so many pull things, pulling on an admin that I don't know, that I quite have the stomach for it.
Jayson Davies
To say No, a little bit more often, maybe as the occupational therapist does. Yeah, I understand that,
Leah Kuypers
but I will say this out of my master's in education, I wrote the zones so that was a result of that path I chose, and it really served as a vessel for me to take all these ideas that I was using with my caseload. And I had that idea of the four zones and that we're working on self regulation, and my colleagues kept telling me, like, you need to write a book. You need to, you know, create a curriculum about this. This is good stuff. And I just thought, There's no way I'm going to do that. I was so overwhelmed by that thought of, you know, trying to create a book curriculum. Um, you know, we wrote treatment plans. I never had written a lesson plan. So the masters in education required a capstone and like a thesis, but on steroids. So we had the choice to do research or create a curriculum. So that was my moment of really like conceptualizing the bigger picture of this and that I'm going to be able to put this together. I'm going to be able to create this more user friendly medium now that I can share with my colleagues. I had no concept that it would grow to what it is today. But, you know, I just thought, if I can put together a binder for my, you know, the teachers who are using it for the other therapists, that would be awesome. And,
Jayson Davies
yeah, so now that we're kind of on the zones, what was the first time that you like, kind of came up with four different zones. Like, were you in a therapy session? Were you sitting in one of those masters of education classes?
Leah Kuypers
Yeah, I was in continuing ed course on visual strategies for the autism learner. And there was, I think, just like, something that they were talking about. I don't remember if it was the four colors or they used the word zones, but all of a sudden, something clicked in my brain, and I was like, four colors, zones of regulation. We're putting emotions into these four categories, and I know this is going to work for my caseload, yeah. And so I then, you know, I told you, I have this kind of design, yeah, creative side of me. So I really loved making visual supports and creating work for my not work, but I just really enjoyed that problem solving for each student. And so I would create a lot of visual supports that were customized for each student, because that's what they needed. I had a really tough case load, and so it was kind of then went back to my computer with board maker programming, I started putting together some simple visuals and brought it to this one teacher that I had all the students in her class. And it was a really tough, tough class. And she was like, Yeah, let's give it a go. And so we started there, and pretty soon the whole school nearly was adopting it. And my other OTs I had, there was three of us in the OT department in this district, and the other two were kind of like my second moms. They were veterans, and they, as I said, continue to be just these big cheerleaders for me. And they were saying, Leah, you need to, like, they were using it. They're like, this is working. This is brilliant. Like, you need to get this out there. So it was kind of that, was that being planted in my head enough times that I thought, Okay, I'll give this a shot and see what I can put together for my capstone.
Jayson Davies
So the first classroom that you implemented it into was that a special education classroom or a general education special ed, okay, yeah, specifically for kids.
Leah Kuypers
Sorry, yeah, I had, I was Oracle room, but all kids had really significant behavior. I had a couple autism rooms around the district, or few autism rooms. And so those sites quickly adapted it too. And yeah, it was cool just to see the students respond, and it made sense to them with the zones I took something I integrated in the systemizing theory by Simon Baron Cohen, and tried to create a simple system for their brains to make sense of all these more abstract ways we feel like color coding them and sorting them And then create these simple pathways for them to follow, like when I'm in the blue zone, I can take a rest, or whatnot like that, so that it was a very kind of linear approach to regulation. And create this simple language and this vision. Will way to communicate it as well, so that we could not have as much need on the auditory which students with autism, many of my students on my caseload, were not necessarily able to process auditory very well, or had limited verbal abilities with the visuals, easier way to communicate.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, so one of the things that I heard you say was like, how you're using the word curriculum. And As occupational therapists, we don't use the word curriculum, we use maybe program or a treatment strategy or a treatment plan, we don't use curriculum. So when I hear using the word curriculum, I automatically think a large classroom or a classroom setting one, and I also think full group. And is that how zones of regulation was intended to be used as more of a full group versus an individual treatment.
Leah Kuypers
Yeah, the lessons are all written for group format, so small group, but that was the thinking behind that, because many of the classrooms, when I would go in, I would with a special ed room, take a group of the class of maybe four to eight kids were in the classroom, and we would be working together on this. So I was delivering it in often that in a more social setting. And then I also was working in small or by the time it really got released. I was in California by that point, and again, working with small groups after school, really kind of, then just fine tuning a lot of the lessons and kind of working out some of the kinks and whatnot. And that was, I thought, a powerful way to deliver it. I liked that the kids were creating this community of understanding each other, and we had this common language to talk about it, and it just became the norm. And then there was that CO regulation piece between the students, where they were helping each other. And it also, I found, provided a lot of those just really in the moment, stressors that then served as an opportunity to practice what we were working on and have those real time teachable moments that often when you're working with self regulation, aren't there when you're working in a one to one setting, a lot of These kids struggle more when there's more dynamic, yes, settings other people, other moving parts to them. So.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. So I just realized that we've been talking, you know, well, the first few minutes we weren't talking about the zones, but the last 10 minutes or so, we've been talking about the zones, but we haven't really gone over what what it is. We've been talking about the development of it. But for people who, for May, whatever reason, not know what the zones of regulation is, can you just give a brief what it is, and maybe the four colors and what those mean?
Leah Kuypers
Sure. So the zones of regulation is just a cognitive way to think about all the ways we feel. The zones are defined by our feelings on the inside, our energy, our levels of arousal, our emotions. So there's four colors. There's the blue zone. When we are having those down emotions, our energy is low. They might be sad, sick, tired, bored. In the blue zone, the Green Zone is when we are in a calm, organized state. I put more neutral emotions there, as well as happy content, focused, calm, ready to learn. The yellow zone is when we have an increased level of arousal, a little more intense emotions. Our energy might be elevated, but I think about it as we still have some of that cognitive control, that executive functioning is still a little able or easier to be tapped into. So these emotions and states I put in there are the anxious, worried, we can be frustrated, silly, excited, so positive emotions too, giddy, overwhelmed, stressed, and then the red zone is those really. Big, intense emotions, those heightened states of arousal. We might even be in fight, flight or fright, freeze mode. There so things like panic, devastation, feeling furious, irate. We can be elated, ecstatic. You know you win the championship and your sporting event, you know, maybe in that red zone, cheering and celebrating. So and you know, tear as well, that really intense fear. So with that, the zones, all the zones are okay, it's natural that we're going to experience all these zones, and the zones aren't about telling you how you should feel there. It's about helping you understand what you're feeling and then giving you strategies to manage those feelings. So once the individual is able to recognize what zone they're in and what feeling they're experiencing, we start putting tools into place to help them then manage that zone so they developed their Blue Zone tools and their green zone, their yellow on their red zone tools.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and so, and I think it's very important, like you said, there isn't a bad zone per se. You know, it's not like we're always trying to get to that green zone. And it's not imperative that we are in the green zone 99% of our day. Like that is not the purpose unless, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but.
Leah Kuypers
You're absolutely right. I mean, I would say I kind of live in the yellow zone, but maybe from the outside, and my behavior appears like I might be in the green, but inside, you know, that's why the zones are about what you feel on the inside. Because inside, you know, gosh, Christmas is in four days, or three days or something. And, you know, I still have this Christmas list to do. We have these projects we're trying to get done by the end of the year. We have family coming and hope, you know, and all organizing that. And so there's a million things running through my head, and I've kind of got a little bit of that scatterbrained, loose sense that I need to tie up, but hopefully I'm coming across sounds pretty good to me. Yeah. So absolutely, it's, you know, helping kids recognize and not just kids, the zones, I think about the zones in my own life that is applicable for adults, too. And what's helping you just have that awareness of where you're at and if you need to manage it so you can get your job done, you know, think about what's the task demands, what's your goals, and then what's the setting you're in, the situation, who's around you. And so those are the factors that come into play as we think about, how do we need to manage our zone, what's going to support us, and sometimes maybe we don't need to manage it. And you know, it's okay to you know, I think my kids went off to school today. They're both wearing Santa pajamas. This school is just like we've given up. We expect pretty much all the kids are going to be in the yellow zone. So do we have movies on deck today? We have popcorn parties, you know? And so it's kind of like, sometimes we don't need to manage it. It's okay, like all these kids are really excited and giddy and maybe a little anxious too, about Christmas and the holiday break. And.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yesterday, yesterday was our last day. And I thought the school was actually pretty smart. They made it a minimum day, so they knew that the kids were gonna be partying all day. So they're just like, all right, you can party all day, but you only get a half day to do it. Like, that's smart. And of course, all of them were in their their pajamas and all that good stuff. So yeah, of course, I had two IEPs so I could not dress in my pajamas. But, but yeah, so while you're talking, one of the questions that popped up into my head was just like anything out there, I'm sure that there are some misconceptions with your program. Whether, have you heard some people talking about your program out there, maybe as someone that asked you a question or and they just had a misconception, and it was just something that needed to be clarified?
Leah Kuypers
Sure. Well, I think one of the most common ones is that, you know, we need to be in the green zone. And it's really not about needing to be in the green zone. Certainly feeling in that calm, organized state is where we're probably going to get our best work done. In the classroom, our social relationships will probably flourish when we're are more likely to flourish. When we're in that calm, organized state, but that's when we go out for recess and everyone's playing a game of tag and we're competitive and around you know, it would be common for many of those kids to be in the yellow zone in that moment or I think there's this kind of almost contingency, this threat, that gets put upon students, you know, you need to get back to the green. And I think about it more as we're not going to take a kid who is sad and just wipe away the sadness and say like, No, you need to be happy in the green rather, it's about, you know, how can we support him managing his blue zone? It might be interfering right now, because he's crying, he's upset, he can't work. But can we give him some tools or strategies to support that place where he's at, help him manage that sadness so that he can still get through his work, participate in class, partner with other kids, and recognize that he still might be sad, but sometimes trying to find those healthy coping mechanisms for him so that he can still perform.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely, and like the same thing. So I have this kid, O who is a fifth, sixth grade student, and I'm new to the school, so I'm new to him at the beginning of the school year, and one of the programs that he is very familiar with is the zones of regulation. In fact, when I first started working with him, he would come in, he had autism, and he would come in, and he would just be like, OT, zones of regulation, and me being a new ot he or me being the new person on campus, he just kind of assumed that I knew zones of regulation. And, you know, I kind of played it off a little bit because I wanted to see what he knew. And so I was like, what's the zones of regulation? And this, this kiddo just went berserk on Drew he drew me an entire diagram on the whiteboard. But one of the things that I easily was able to see is that for him, and I've continued to see this over the course of the last six months, is for him, he's obsessed with being in the green zone. And he will always answer that he's in the green zone, and he's, you know, the green zone is the best zone. I need to be in the green zone. And so this entire year, we've been kind of working on more expression of the other zones, or, yeah, his ability to express himself in the other zones and to understand that it's okay to be in the other zones.
Leah Kuypers
For sure.
Jayson Davies
It's something that takes a lot, because especially the kids with autism, they want to if you tell them that the green zone is like the zone to be in, then I mean, any kid wants to please an adult. And if they feel that, if I say I'm in the green zone, that's going to please the adult, then we kind of lose the the importance, or we lose the entire reasoning for the zones of regulation.
Leah Kuypers
Yeah. And I talk about, you know, using our tools to get back to the green when I recognize, you know, this seems really uncomfortable where they're at. And so helping them see that they're not going to always feel this way, you know, like it's finding you know that say that kid who is just kind of washed over with anxiety, and let's try to find some tools to help us take care of our yellow zone, and maybe we'll move back to the green. But it's not like this threat that we have to or, you know, sometimes, some days, yeah, I'm just kind of stuck in the blue zone, and I'm like, I want to get back to the green, right? But, um, but yeah, I think so much of that kind of the intonation and just kind of context in what you're saying, it can create so much meaning around that, so that, if it you know, we can talk about, let's find a tool and get back to the green, which sounds supportive, versus like you need to use a tool and get back to the green sounds very much more like a threat or something or that there's something wrong. So yeah, I thank you for helping him gain comfort and explore that this is.
Jayson Davies
All right, so we know what the zones are, I want to ask you, going forward, what I'm sure that you have ventured out into the evidence realm, or people have used your program to kind of figure out who it works for, what it works for. Off the top of your head, are there some evidence? Some. Articles or things going on with the zones of regulation that you can speak to?
Leah Kuypers
There is a lot of people who have done their graduate work and research around the zones, and rarely does it go on to the point of getting published in a peer reviewed journal. So there's been some posters presented on the zones at a OTA. There is a group that I've worked with who did a study with using the zones and with the fetal alcohol syndrome population that produced some evidence. There is the biggest study that I've been in communication with, and they've yet to release any of the findings, but it was this group in Brevard County, Florida, and they had a huge, multiple million dollar grant from the government the I know, I'm not going to say the right name, what brand, or What department, but they they received it for improving school climate and safety. Okay, and so the zones was a piece of this study, and they used the zones in elementary and middle schools as in their intervention for at risk students, and they were having a lot of success, and they decided they wanted to extend the grant another or this research another year. And so it officially ended spring the term last year. And there's not been a release yet of the findings.
Jayson Davies
So they're still putting all the data together.
Leah Kuypers
Yeah, so it was nice because I needed to get two years of data then, and I know several of the schools moved to using zones as a school wide approach versus just with their at risk students. But I don't have the hard numbers, and I just keep holding my breath, waiting for but, yeah, I think one of my weaknesses is definitely a more research based mind. I'm much more on the creative side of things. I really kind of struggle when we start thinking about.
Jayson Davies
Putting the numbers and all that good stuff together, right?
Leah Kuypers
So I always say I will do everything I can do to help support anyone who wants to take a lead in that. And we actually just got, there's a new study with Clemson University that's going to be unrolling now, I believe in this new year. So that person I've been in contact with as well as they work to set up the study and the parameters and stuff around that, but yes, so email me if that's your if you want to know some research, my publisher and I are happy to help facilitate in any way.
Jayson Davies
But yeah, all right, well, I think we should probably start wrapping up. But I want to ask you, and on a good note. What's, what's a story that you can share with us that the zones of regulation worked with a kiddo or a group of kids or something like that. Can you share with us just a specific instance that you recall that just made you smile, because it worked so well?
Leah Kuypers
Yeah, if you come to my full day trainings, or really any training I do. I talk about the student Nate. I He was a third grader when I started working with him, and I worked for with him his third and fourth grade year, and he was in a group, but we also started doing some individual work with him. I, he had a very inflexible brain. I He wasn't had didn't have any diagnoses. He didn't qualify for any services through the school. So his parents were bringing him to me privately and but he really struggled with self regulation, and he was bright, articulate, but he just really struggled to manage those stressors, and it often showed in. His quick temper. He had sharp tongue. He easily just kind of would shut down when the stress compiled or there was conflict. So he he was a kid, he walked into the my office the first day I met him, and he said nothing to me. He stared at the zones visual on the wall, and he turns to me, and he had, kind of like a young professor, like voice he had, he said to me, Well, I guess I'm in the yellow zone. I'm feeling anxious. I've never met you before. He was very matter of fact, and it clicked instantly for him, and it he told me after the end of the second year, he said something to the effect of, I've always known this was hard for me to deal with my emotions, and you put together something so easy to understand and for me to follow. And you know, he just has this really kind of this brain that, you know, if you can just map it out, he's going to follow that. And so once it just got organized for him in this way, he started using tools. Within a few weeks of he had that awareness of his feelings, and it just now we had these tools categorized into these zones, and he had a lot of that grit and determination, but he just needed some, some way to kind of help him make sense of this and give him some of that structure to really perform it and or put in a place. And so he was just a kid who made really amazing gains and was so fun to work with because he challenged me, and he would make me think about things that I'm like, Oh, I didn't, I didn't pull that apart to that degree. And he would, you know, pull it apart and make me think. And I think he challenged me as much as I challenged him, but in the end, it was a win win, and I usually end with this, my talks with the slide of his report card, because his parents sent me his report card, and they said, for the first time ever, Nate got a perfect string at ease in that self control and social responsibility category, and these are he's always had all the academic grades, but he's always struggled in this area. So.
Jayson Davies
We can't get a much better testimonial than from a fourth grader on this program.
Leah Kuypers
I wish it was like, one of those moments where I'm like, oh, I need to write this down, and I didn't, but he's just a kid who won over my heart and just will always be a memory inspiration for me to keep working and thinking about.
Jayson Davies
keeping on. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing that story with us that that's meaningful. And I think that as occupational therapists, I think we all strive for for that same exact conversation with our students. You know, after working with our students for a little bit, we like, I mean, come on. We like to hear from the students that they're making progress, and we like them to feel proud of themselves. And so for this kid ot to really feel that, you know, I'm kind of under control for the first time in my life, and I understand what's going on in myself, basically, is what I'm hearing that's really cool. And, yeah, yeah. So, all right, great. Well, before I let you go, is there anything else you would like to share with people out there. I'm thinking, well, anything you want to add, but also, if anyone would like to contact you or learn more about the zones.
Leah Kuypers
Um, I have a lot of information on my website, zones of regulation.com and contact is info at zones of regulation.com so there's our training schedule. We offer webinar, web based training as well, and it's kind of what I've been working on, and different our products and creations. And there is some more on the research and those bits I was talking about finding, you can find some links for more information, and, yeah, some free share stuff too that you can use to accompany the curriculum in the book. So
Jayson Davies
definitely, and we will link to that in the show notes, as well as to the. Directly the actual program, we'll link directly to that as well. So thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate having you, and hope you have a great rest of your holiday season.
Leah Kuypers
Thank you so much.
Jayson Davies
Take care. Leah.
Leah Kuypers
Okay, bye.
Jayson Davies
All right. Well, that does it for episode 23 of the OT school house podcast featuring Leah Kuypers the zones of regulation. And I hope you guys will check out the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com. Forward slash 23 for everything that we talked about today. Hope to see you there. Take care. Bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OT schoolhouse.com. Until next time class is dismissed.
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