The Speech-Language Pathologist’s Role in Supporting the Development of Self-Regulation: A Review and Tutorial
Amanda V. Binns, Lynda R. Hutchinson, Janis Oram Cardy
Purpose: children’s engagement in self-regulation is a strong and positive predictor of their social and academic success, making self-regulation an important focus for caregivers and clinicians. The aims of this article are to provide a framework for understanding self-regulation and to identify strategies speech-language pathologists can use to integrate self-regulation work into their clinical practice. Method: empirically supported considerations describing the developmental progression from co-regulation to self-regulation are outlined, and the effects of stress on self-regulation are discussed. A clinical framework is provided to guide speech-language pathologists in considering stress and self-regulation in their clinical work. Strategies are provided to a) support speech-language pathologists’ employment of co-regulation as a method for mitigating the negative effects that stress can have on therapeutic efforts, and to b) support children’s development of skills (i.e. executive functions, metacognition) required to actively self-regulate. Conclusion: given that children’s ability to attain a state of regulation is integral to attending, engaging, and learning from their environment, the information provided in this tutorial can be used to inform and enhance current clinical practice.
Keywords
Self-regulation, Speech-language pathologist, Speech therapy, Language therapy, Co-regulation, Executive functions, Metacognition, Preschool, School-age, Stress in children, Language development, Language acquisition, Speech-language therapist.
