Co-Regulation through Affective Signalling

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This Week’s Podcast

I am absolutely thrilled to have returning guest, Educator Kasheena Holder back, who is a DIR-Expert and Training Leader with the International Council on Development and Learning and owner and director of Legacy, an inclusive school in Barbados where about 60 percent of her students are neurodivergent and about 40 percent are neurotypical. I would like to consider this episode a part two to three difference past episodes.

First is my previous podcast with Kasheena called Creating Opportunities for Co-Regulatory Support, the second being the last episode on Gestural Development, and the third being the episode about Gestalt Language Processing because these topics are all so intertwined, and there’s so much buzz around Gestalt Language Processing. We want to distill it down for the DIR folks.

Co-Regulation through Affective Signalling

by Affect Autism

https://affectautism.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/2024-10-11.mp3

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Reviewing Co-Regulation

I began this episode with a quick review of my first podcast with Kasheena in 2022 about Creating Opportunities for Co-Regulatory Support. Kasheena made many subpoints in that podcast as well, but this is basically what Brookes was talking about, too, last episode with the gestural communication.

Co-regulation is the process of connecting to our child’s emotional state and supporting our child to feel heard and understood so they feel safe in their emotional experience and can be calmed through our connection.

What I liked in our first podcast was the focus Kasheena put on us, just like Dr. Stuart Shanker talks about in self-reg, and just like when we do the sensory processing profile on ourselves first. She talked about checking in with ourselves with how we’re feeling in the moment and accepting that it’s ok because that allows us to activate our co-regulatory capacities.

Our parents weren’t really nurtured in that way, and their parents were going through world wars, I pointed out. But being in that space is what Greenspan focused his whole theory on: his affect diathesis–avoiding those catastrpoic emotional reactions by co-regulating off of our caregivers through preverbal affective signalling.

The Beginning of Co-Regulation

That’s such a powerful place to start, Kasheena states. So much of what we do and who we are is at the foundation of our affective signalling, she says. She always thinks of T. Barry Brazelton and how he’s looking at afterbirth and how infants are in that space of practicing their innate regulatory capacities. At the point where the stimulation–internally or externally–is more than they’re able to organize around, they start to give stronger signals like crying, or changing their affect, so the caregiver can come in and support them by co-regulating.

That connection supports them to becoming more regulated and organizing that capacity to develop regulation, Kasheena explains. It highlights how relationships are essential, and as human beings we’re looking to make connections and support ourselves in being robust affective signallers and signal receivers though our relationships. In the work that we’re doing, Kasheena continues, the journey is thinking about how efficiently and effectively that other person is taking in our affective signals.

I pointed out that when we see a baby in distress, we have the DNA in us to reach out and calm them with baby talk. We’ll even see grown burly men be nurturing. And I think it was Dr. Robert Naseef, who co-runs a father’s support group out of Drexel University, that said that with men you’ll often see that kind of affect with their animals. They might feel uncomfortable showing that nurturing affect around humans but will do it with their dogs, for example, saying “Here, boy! C’mon, little fella.“

Affect Before Language

When our children get verbal, we tend to rely on the words and forget about that preverbal signalling. If our children are not speaking, we can tend to think we’ve tried everything so we stop communicating with them when they don’t respond. That might be changing now as there are so many more neurodiversity-affirming families emerging because there’s so much on social media about Gestalt Language Processors, but when we talk about infants–are they processing affect in scripts and chunks?

When we talk about affect, maybe we can put aside the language processing–not that it’s not important, because we will respond differently to Gestalt Language Processors to promote their language development. Overriding all of that, though, is the affect that we share to make that child feel understood so they do feel like they have power to communicate with us, verbally, or not.

As an Educator, Kasheena says her foundation is not in the type of language processor a child is, even though she wants to be aware of what the child’s individual communication style in order to support them in regulating and developing. But as an educator, when she connects with her kids, and talks to parents, she asks them to think about how they are connecting affectively with their child to make meaning. That early affective reciprocity is the foundation for the understanding for making meaning, she asserts.

It starts in the affective state–that preverbal phase, Kasheena insists. We want to think of it as a consistently evolving thing. We still rely on our affective cues and anchor our relationships in our affective signals long after we are verbal and symbolic. Kasheena and I were not telling each other, “Let’s add some more words” in our conversation. We were aware of each other’s affective signalling as we were recording this podcast. We were responding to each other’s affective cueing.

Relationship Building

Kasheena continues that in times of distress where the world is too bright or too loud, when a child feels their caregiver’s voice more deeply, there is this affective presence that child can connect with. That’s where she meets her children at on the first day of school. She’s focused on how her and the children read each other’s affect as they build their relationship. And she points out that if the reading and sending of signals is not strong, then the future capacities in development will be harder on that child’s nervous system.

Kasheena says we must ponder how does the affect make me feel and how do I respond to it? We want it to build to meaning making and language acquisition. She doesn’t think about what type of language processor a child is in the building phase of the relationship. She wonders if Gestalt Language Processor are reading affect and signals in chunks during language acquisition. If so, then if we, as caregivers, do not give affect in this scripting way, then maybe the Gestalt Language Processor is not understanding and connecting with us.

We want to support the development that’s needed as a child comes along and develops a relationship with us. In the Developmental, Individual differences, Relationship-based (DIR) model where we support an individual to move through the Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities (FEDCs), Gestalt Language Processing (GLP) is part of the “I“, or the unique differences of each child. We aim to meet each child where they are developmentally, through our relationship.

Neurodiversity-affirming research and the way autistic children develop is starting to explode. What I see is a lot of the children whom the medical model would say are in their own world, not making eye contact, but let’s think about the relationship. I gave the example of the movie Something about Mary where Cameron Diaz’s character had an autistic brother and her friend, Ben Stiller’s character, was the only one who could connect with her brother due besides her, due to the relationship they formed as children.

Struggling with Affective Signalling

I told Kasheena that parents may wonder how they can do affective signalling if their child is never looking at them? Especially when we do Floortime and follow the child’s lead, we can practice these affective cues. I shared that I recall being super aware as a young child of things going on around me that I ignored because it had no interest to me. I don’t say that this is representative of all children, but I do know that when I see kids who seemingly have no reciprocal interaction with their caregivers and I say something of great interest to them, they look at me and pay attention, listening more intently.

This is when you can practice this affective signalling. Then, when they get flustered and overwhelmed, they will have that capacity to co-regulate off of us through this affective signalling. But I stressed that we are not blaming caregivers who might say that their child has explosive emotional reactions despite trying to do this. It sounds very insulting of us to suggest that we just have to do a lot of affective cueing and eventually the child will co-regulate with you and everything will be just fine. We are not saying that! Autistic kids do develop differently.

Kasheena says that she tells parents that this is a journey. We are bringing two nervous systems together–and she might not use that language with parents. She’ll say that they are getting to know their child and their child is getting to know them. Sometimes you’ll get it, and sometimes you’ll miss it. That’s when we wonder what I missed and think about that for next time. It’s a process. We want to hold ourselves accountable in the journey of learning more about the human being whom we’re with, which might be more intricate than another family with a predictively developing child.

The Development of Co-Regulation is a Process

Kasheena says that the more we see developing co-regulation as a journey or a process rather than a ‘fix it’, we will come to a space of more acceptance of the stress it can bring, and we will feel a lot more open and safer as we’re navigating where the ‘just right’ nuances are to support another’s nervous system. We don’t have the exact tools or script. As a teacher in a classroom, she sometimes feels she is really gelling with a child and sometimes she notices that it just didn’t work. This makes her wonder about why the connection wasn’t there.

I mentioned that certain kids feel comfortable around certain people. It’s about that Relationship. Maybe sometimes two people just don’t gel, but there are things we can do to facilitate that connection so the person can feel safe and doesn’t have to keep their guard up, Kasheena offers. When Kasheena thinks of matching up a caregiver and a child, it brings up thinking about being open to the reflectiveness of the journey and the authentic discovering of who we are within the R we are in. Then, we will be more open to the nuances that impact that other nervous system, she says.

If we’re not in the space of, “What affect do I have? What’s in my body language? What’s in my ‘energy’ that I’m offering in this moment to this other nervous system that might not be matching?” then it’s difficult. If we really reflect on ourselves and adapt, making the internal affective changes–not cognitively thinking about it, but reflecting in that emotional space–then we can better connect to that other person’s nervous system so they can feel safer in that relationship to support their development, Kasheena shares.

Being Reflective about Connection

When we think about reflection in DIR, we talk about watching videos of playing with an individual, and in those clips you can see things you weren’t aware of in the moment. Certainly we all have different degrees of self-awareness, but when we’re watching we may see cues that we missed. It’s why in DIRFloortime, we suggest going over videos with a coach and it’s why we do reflective practice and supervision. I gave a less abstract example to relay the point.

Think about when you run into someone at the grocery store. Do you cower and think, “Oh no… there’s that person. I don’t want to say hi to them” then avoid them or are you really happy and excited to see them? How does your body feel? What is your affect telling you? Our kids are experiencing that. It doesn’t mean it’s black and white. That is, it doesn’t mean every time I see that person I will be annoyed or happy, as there are many factors that impact how we feel including if we had enough sleep or if we’re in a hurry, etc. This is why Floortime is so hard for some people because it can be so abstract.

I talked about the latest video from Yuji Oka who does adapted spiral praxis about the affective connection he has to make with his clients to work on feeling more comfortable in their body. In the video they say that this is not something that’s instruction-based, and you have to feel your way thorugh it. It seems like such a soft science, but we have that intuition about feeling connected or not with another person.

Practicing Co-Regulation

In our last podcast, Kasheena talked about reflecting and practicing affective signalling when we have time, instead of only thinking about it only when we are in a stressful situation. We need to nurture relationships as we go along. She says that in an affective relationship, children are gathering meaning through our tone of voice, through our intonation, through our gestures, through our expressions of self and emotions, and the more we do that, the more they are building that understanding.

We want them to build that understanding because if they can read another’s affect and emotional state, and are learning to understand their own, then they can lean into that other person’s emotional and regulatory capacity when they feel catastrophic emotionally.

In Kasheena’s experience, children are more catastrophic because they aren’t able to read a signal of co-regulation in that distress. If they’re regulated and it appears they are reading each other’s affect well, but then they become distraught and the signalling is not as strong, it leads her to wonder how robust it was initially and how she can help to strengthen it by giving big gestures, holding them for longer, and sending clear, emotional, affective signals. She will wonder if she needs to have more nuances and subtlety in her emotional expressions so they can still read subtleties in connecting and reconnecting.

I pointed out that Dr. Stuart Shanker, among others, also mentions that there’s always something that lead up to that catastrophic reaction, so we can try to determine clues about what happened. Kasheena said that being a detective is difficult, though. Looking for all of these nuances is work, and can we really notice everything? Probably not. So, when we think about ‘being with‘ and having that affective connection, and we didn’t find that cause, we can still receive that affective signalling in a way that each nervous system is sending the message that I need you, I have you, we’re together, regardless of the solution.

This even goes into thinking about the fourth Functional Emotional Developmental Capacity (FEDC 4) where it is the journey of the problem, the wondering, and the discovery, Kasheena says. ‘We’ are not the solution. So when Kasheena thinks about self-regulation, it’s not always about discovering the trigger. It’s about feeling supported through this wave of emotion, and as the individual is supported, their nervous system is learning about how to feel supported over time, regardless of knowing the trigger.

This is the innate ability to share in these experiences together in a way that’s anchoring the maturity of it, so that if something unexpected comes, we’re still able to connect and co-regulate, Kasheena says. Of course, seeking the triggers is still helpful, but in the event that we cannot, there is still that connection and that affective attunement supporting the relationship. I thanked Kasheena for saying that, especially for parents who have a child with a Persistent/Pervasive Drive for Autonomy (PDA) who can have unpredictable catastrophic reactions.

The 2024 International DIRFloortime Conference Live Online October 20 to 29

I shared that I will be co-presenting with two other caregivers on October 21st and encourage you to attend! The presentation is entitled, Lived Experience Matters: What We Can Learn from Autistic Floortime Mothers and Daughters.

What Kind of Engagement is Necessary for Affective Signalling?

Kasheena said it’s key that our children can often cause us to think that they’re not taking in information because they’re not giving us the social cues we’re accustomed to, such as eye contact. She has long learned differently as a teacher. She has kids who are not comfortable with that direct, central, visual engagement, but they take in a lot of information through their periphery, and it’s enough to support their nervous system because clear and precise is too much for their nervous system. They are taking in the world differently.

We need to feel comfortable in that space and accept that they’re engaging with us, Kasheena states. Also, are we only in reciprocal back-and-forth if we’re visually enagaged with a person? We have to be in the space of presence, attunement, and ‘being with’ versus ‘doing for’ as we build our capacity for that reciprocity, signal sending, and preverbal interplay. She’d also say that although it’s difficult at times where it appears we’re doing nothing such as laying together in a cuddle that’s more intimate, sharing time next to each other, that those are the moments where we’re practicing that preverbal affective signalling in the early stages, and we can build from there.

It may feel as if you did nothing, but that’s ok, Kasheena says, because we’re helping the nervous system experience feeling comfortable in the proximity and presence of another nervous system. In that space, she says, we’re still sending those affective signals of care, warmth, and safety. These are the early foundations of reading each other’s affect that we want to strive to not forget, and to still hold very relevant in the big journey and process of affect signalling.

I added that you might feel like you have the connection with the visual contact, but if you sigh impatiently, your child hears that and it will set their nervous system off negatively versus making a positive auditory noise. ‘Being with’ is so important. Laying together might be giving your child’s body proprioceptive input. They might need to run around together having a dance party to feel relaxed and connected with you. We focus too much on vision and doing stuff, and forget about the rest.

This week’s PRACTICE TIP:

This week let’s practice just ‘being with’ our child and feeling that emotional connection and attunement.

For example: Let’s try to not use any words and be with our child when they are in a relaxed state. Notice how you feel without the pressure to do anything or have your child do anything. Notice how they are feeling. Notice any tension. Notice any emotional cues that they might be sending or any that you might be sending, such as a smile.

Thank you to Kasheena for reviewing this essential component of the DIR Model with us and really diving deep into the topic. I hope you found it as helpful as I did and will consider sharing this post on social media.

Until next time, here’s to choosing play and experiencing joy everyday!