Date of Award
2025
Document Type
Scholarly Project
Degree Name
Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD)
Department
Occupational Therapy
First Advisor
Sarah Nielsen
Abstract
Purpose: Many children with mental, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental health conditions internalize and externalize symptoms of anxiety, depression, and anger at higher rates compared to children without these conditions (Tajik-Parvinchi, 2021). Difficulties with emotion regulation may lead to heightened experiences of symptoms from mental, behavioral, and neurodevelopmental health conditions (Tajik-Parvinchi, 2021). Occupational therapy practitioners can support children with emotional dysregulation by using evidence-based best practices. The identified problem is the application of evidence-based emotion regulation evaluation and interventions to support children with difficulty in emotion regulation and their caregivers. The challenge of implementing evidence-based emotion regulation services is limited research and a lack of consensus to support the many different emotion regulation evaluations and interventions (Philpott-Robinson et al., 2023; Scaffa, 2019).
Methods: The program development process for Supporting the Development of Emotion Regulation for Engagement in Occupation began with an extensive literature review, needs assessment, skilled observation, and informal interviews with occupational therapy practitioners and billing staff. Evidence-based best practices were compared to interventions and evaluation methods being used at an outpatient clinic through the lens of the Model of Human Occupation. After the development of a gap analysis, emotion regulation, and caregiver education resources were created, trialed, and edited to best support occupational therapy practitioners in treating children with emotional dysregulation.
Results: Resources were developed to support occupational therapy practitioners in treating children with emotion regulation. The resources included an emotion regulation process, screening tools, various examples of interventions, examples of goals, caregiver coaching tools, and developmental milestones. Goal attainment scaling was used as an outcome measure for the project to determine the effectiveness of the project resources.
Conclusion: The emotion regulation and caregiver education resources provided occupational therapy practitioners with a guide to enhance consistency in service delivery and increase confidence in delivering emotion regulation and caregiver education services.
Recommended Citation
Smith, Alexis Karen, "SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTION REGULATION FOR ENGAGEMENT IN OCCUPATION" (2025). Occupational Therapy Capstones. 657.
https://commons.und.edu/ot-grad/657