How Does Your Engine Run, the Alert Program for Self Regulation

This program was designed by Mary Sue Williams and Sherry Shellenberg, both occupational therapists, to help your child learn about self regulation and to promote an appropriate alert state for learning using the engine analogy. Children are taught that , “If your body is like a car engine, sometimes it runs on high, sometimes it runs on low and sometimes it runs just right.: (Take Five, 2001, M.S.Williams and S. Shellenberg.) The concepts are applicable to all age levels and children developmentally below the age of 8 can be introduced to the concepts with adult support to offer a range of strategies to help children regulate their alertness.

Children are first taught to think about and identify their “engine speed” or level of alertness. Engine speeds are identified as Low, Just Right and High.

There is a range of alertness that can be considered “Just Right,” when children are alert and attentive, their muscles are not droopy and they can concentrate easily.

“High” engine levels can be described as “wound up ” or “on the go” and “Low” engine levels as “droopy” or “tired”. (At times a child with a low alertness level may look like they are in a high alertness state because they are using fidgeting or other sensory seeking strategies to help increase their alertness levels.)

Fortunately modulation through taking a break, in particular, by using heavy work to muscles and joints helps when engines are in either high or low states. Heavy work to the muscles includes activities which involve pushing, pulling, lifting, hanging, climbing, tugging or towing. Movement breaks that utilize heavy work are the predominant method that the Alert program emphases to alter engine levels. The Take Five book is a good resource for quick “tune ups” and highlights the 5 ways to change engine levels: Put something in your mouth (oral motor input,) Move (vestibular and proprioceptive input,) Touch(tactile input,) Look (visual input,) and Listen (auditory input.)

A reproducible vertical Hi-Low chart is attached where alertness levels can be visually marked. The chart is a continuous line, as alertness levels are continuously changing. This is OK and natural. No one should be expected to be in the just right level at all times. If fact, low levels are important for certain activities, such as relaxing and getting ready to sleep and high levels can be important for playing sports games or responding to other urgent situations. The point of the program is to help children identify and learn how to modify their engine levels to match the need of the activity at hand. Methods of changing alertness levels can be considered “tuning the engine.”

Another fun way to visually identify engine levels it to make a speedometer with half a paper plate, marked in 3 pie wedges as Low, Just Right and High, with a paper arrow attached with a brass fastener at the bottom middle to allow the child to turn the arrow to the appropriate range.

Reproducible pictures of examples of high, just right and low engine levels are included to jump start discussion of what each level looks like and feels like.

1 | P a g e S u m m a r i z e d , P . L u d e w i g 2 0 1 1 A list of some sensory strategies has been attached as an example of ways to increase or decrease alertness level to a more optimal state. Each child will have different preferences and this list should be modified to reflect what works well for then.

Reference:

Take Five, Staying Alert at home and school by Mary Sue Williams and Shelley Shellenberg

Published 2001 by Therapy Works, Inc. 4901 Butte Place, N.W Albuquerque, NM 87120