Working with Those Who are

Over-Sensitised
Kathryn Berkett
19 July 2019

Over-sensitised = Ss diagnosed with ODD, ADHD, working in their downstairs brain.

The only thing we’re working on is helping them to calm down. This is simple!
1. Repetitive
2. Rhythmic
3. Routine
4. Relational

Dr Bruce Perry, ​The Boy Who was Raised as a Dog​. He is a specialist on how trauma impacts the brain.

The First Thousand Days

Lower Brain = Red Brain

Upper Brain = Green Brain

Neuroception
Sympathetic system
Parasympathetic system

Breathing

Teacher Self-Care

Over-Sensitised Stress Response (OSR)

How to calm the brain

Relationships
Status
Distraction
Sensory activity

How to keep the survival brain calm

Emotional resilience

Increasing emotional resilience

The First Thousand Days
The first thousand days are the foundation for the rest of your brain. It doesn’t completely determine the
house (the rest of the child’s life), but it does influence it a lot.
● Neurotypical children have strong and stable foundations, i.e. first 1,000 days. There may be
occasional cracks in the plaster, but you can fix that.
● Non-neurotypical kids will have cracks in the plaster that you can’t just fix quickly, as they will keep
coming back due to issues with the foundation.
● You can go back and sure up the foundation later on, but it will never be as good as it could have
been.

But the foundation-building starts before the child is even born:

Alcohol exposure - there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. Even one drink can lead to damage to the
growing brain.
Cortisol is a stress hormone, there is an enzyme in the placenta that protects the baby from this stress
hormone. If the mother is experiencing ongoing and very high stress, then some of the cortisol can make its
way through and affect the child. This increases the chance that the baby will be born with a high HPA,
leading to a hyper-vigilant child. This leads to issues with things like empathy and sequencing for that child.

Lots of cells get cleaned out during puberty, so that the brain can function more efficiently.
Brain cells are connected through experiences. Unconnected cells aren’t connected because they’re not
being used, e.g. a cell that allows you to make a particular sound like rolling your Rs.
Myelination happens when cells are connected multiple times, increasing the speed and resilience of the
connection. This is like building a bigger and better road. Practice is key!
One very emotional experience (happy or sad) gets replayed by your brain, and this leads to myelination
even though the experience only happened once.
Our brain physically grows in size and weight as a result of this myelination! Goes from 375g at birth to
1,400g as an adult. Most of this growth happens in the first year, most of the rest happens by age 3.
We myelinate all our life!

Templates are a series of myelinated neurones that create a particular pathway. E.g. that a dog says woof,
or if you see someone hurting somebody else then it’s your job to sort it out and hurt them back, or that you
swear constantly. ​To change any of this, you need to myelinate a new, alternative template.​ You can’t
completely get rid of the original template, e.g. that you swear constantly.
It is harder to change the template the older the child is: it’s easier at age four than age eight, and easier at
age eight than at age 14.

Myelination is repetition.​ Repeated praise of a positive behaviour choice helps with myelination, reinforcing
that experience that they had of making a good choice. This myelinates a particular template that you want.
Children can still sometimes revert to their original template when they are in a new or threatening situation.

Dendrocytes like endorphins, including those we get from:

1. Exercise
2. Laughing
3. Singing - this is the one that releases more endorphins than anything else! (Apart from sex.)
These three things help children learn.
Lower Brain = Red Brain
Survival brain, i.e. brain stem, reptilian brain
● Survival tasks
● Impulsivity
● Irrational
● “Two years old”
● Selfish, don’t have the capacity to judge how their actions will impact on others
Anxiety and depression move us into the red brain. We have the capacity of a two-year-old.

Our brain is developed in layers, i.e. neurosequential development.

“Terrific twos” are when the brain practices different emotions and getting over them, e.g.:
1. The monster in the closet is the brain practising fear
2. Saying or doing mean things to a loved one is the brain practising the push me/pull you complexities
of relationships
3. Getting frustrated with games is the brain practising frustration and overcoming it.
The parent’s job in this stage is to help the child practice calming down.
Sometimes children go through the terrible twos stage and push you away, say they hate working with you
because they are moving out of their survival brain and they are starting to practice more sophisticated
emotional relationships.

Upper Brain = Green Brain

Emotional resilience
Prefrontal cortex and executive functioning
1. Override impulses
2. Plan
3. Sequence
4. Time management
5. Abstract thinking
6. Empathy
This is what makes us different from most other animals.
The upper brain starts to develop around the age of 4-6, and finishes when most of the cells are connected
when we are 25. Some researchers are suggesting that this process actually only finishes when we are
30-32, or even 35.
At about the age of 17-19, there’s a massive myelination upgrade due to a massive integration of learning
from the early adolescent stage. They start to be able to actually understand all the things their parents
were trying to teach them when they were an early adolescent!

Neuroception
Neuroception is what your brain does constantly - your red brain is constantly asking “Am I safe?”. You are
constantly scanning to check if you’re safe in that moment, but also in the future: can I pay my
mortgage/feed my children/etc. Poverty can therefore be a contributing factor, but only if there isn’t a
support network as a result of a strong community.
When the red brain detects a stressor, it signals that there is an increased chance that you will die. This can
be triggered by the smallest things, e.g. losing your keys, worrying about bills. The fight/flight/freeze
response is activated, your brain is primed to keep you alive and so automatically assumes that any stress
is life-threatening.
Your energy is directed away from your green brain and towards your red brain, so you can’t analyse the
situation.

Vagus nerve is a massive bundle of nerves going down your back -

connects to all sorts of organs, including our kidneys, heart, lungs,
etc. This activates our sympathetic system (which causes us to fight
or flight), or our parasympathetic system (which causes us to
freeze).

Sympathetic system
Effects:
● Takes energy from other areas
● Eyes dilate
● Mouth goes dry as saliva production gets shut off
● Breathing increases
● Heart beats faster
● Feel queasy, as digestion takes up too much energy so your
body tries to make you purge
● Bowel and bladder may empty (in extreme stress)
● Pores constrict, so they become more sensitive. This can lead to increased scratching, especially of
the back, as we are more sensitised. This may mean that they get overstimulated by a reassuring
hand on the back, and become even more upset when you try to comfort them.
● Energy goes to arms and legs - this makes you more likely to throw/hit/kick to use the energy and
survive.
Some children wake up in this state (that’s why some can’t eat breakfast!) and come to school in a
heightened state.

Parasympathetic system
This is a survival system that means to play dead. Effects:
● Heart rate slows
● Slumping happens, with no tension in the body at all
● Blood goes from arms and legs into the core - when they are coming back out of the freeze
response, this can cause rubbing of hands or tapping of feet as the blood returns to the limbs
● No recollection of what happens during the freeze response
More likely to happen in a female. Girls can also just sit there and smile - this is a learned stress response,
they are hoping they will leave them alone!

Possible for a child to switch between fight/flight and freeze (usually dependent on environment as to which
way they will go), or to start our with fight/flight and then move straight into freeze.
Breathing
Sympathetic and parasympathetic system counterbalance each other. When they are in balance, you are at
a happy equilibrium. You can’t control your kidneys or your heart when you are in a stress response, but
you ​can​ control your lungs. By slowing breathing you affect the whole system, and the brain starts to move
very slowly from red to green.

Breathing can’t be taught in the middle of a stress response, it needs to be taught when we are calm. If a
child is stressed and can’t calm themselves, then just contain the environment and keep yourself safe.

Teacher Self-Care
We activate our stress response as teacher throughout the day.
Sandpapeed brain - more and more little bits of stress rubbing away at our brain, making us more sensitive
to everything going on around us. This activates our red brain and physically impacts our body (crashing),
because you have been in a stress response for weeks. Symptoms:
● Dry eyes due to less blinking
● Mouth sores due to dry mouth, gum infections happen too
● Weight gain or weight loss (because the stomach isn’t working properly so the food either goes
through you or is stored quickly as fat in response to stress)
● Bloating
● Diarrhea/constipation
● Tension in shoulders
● Leg cramps
● Cortisol is a stress hormone which inhibits melatonin, so you can’t sleep properly

First things to try to self-care are:

● Sleep - replenishes enzymes that increase muscle production and increase myelination to help with
learning, cleans up refuse from myelination (this really happens!). Lack of sleep leads to increased
desire for sugar.
● Exercise
● Calming
Check in and notice stomach/eyes/shoulders. If you notice tension, then use strategies to relax and calm
down.

Dan Siegel says at least one hour before sleep you need to be off devices. Devices are more impactful than
the TV, because they are closer to our faces.

Over-Sensitised Stress Response (OSR)

OSR = Stress-response is over-activated frequently ​and/or​ for long periods of time, ​and​ there is an
absence of attuned adult support.
Environments that can lead to this:
● Abuse
● Neglect
● Adult with mental illness/addiction/grief
 ● Autism - born sensitised from birth, in which case normal parenting could lead to OSR. “Autistic
behaviour” is actually a result of over-stimulation, ​not​ the autism.
● Premature birth
● Genetic hyper-vigilance also exists
● Lots of transitions
● Constant earthquakes (Christchurch!) - there is data coming out of Chch that show there has been a
big impact on many children

Activation of the sympathetic nervous system happens in milliseconds in an over-sensitised child. The child
has no control over this, it is almost instant. Therefore it is unfair to punish children for fight/flight response,
as they have no control over it.

Over-sensitised children need a different intervention that teaches them to calm. Only when this happens
can you move into a behaviour plan that requires cognitive (green brain) engagement.

Alcohol activates the parasympathetic system, and this becomes addictive. We want to activate the
parasympathetic (to bring us into equilibrium when we are stressed) first before we have alcohol - get calm
first​, then have a drink, as this stops the addiction forming.

How to calm the brain

When a child is ​starting​ to escalate, their brain is doing neuroception and is activating the survival
response. Counteract this by signalling to the brain that they are safe:

1. Relationships
The brain knows that relationships keep it safe.
If they want a connection to a parent, then they can keep a special something that reminds them of
that adult to help remind their brain of the relationship and calm them.
As an adult, you can think of relationships with God or with an ancestor.
The safe person that the child seeks out may then bear the brunt of the physical and verbal abuse
that the child displays when they are in an escalated state. They aren’t doing this on purpose, it is
just their red brain taking over.
This is the most important element!

2. Status
Our brain reactions to our change in status: we believe that the higher status we are, the more likely
we are to survive, so anything that compromises our status is felt as a direct threat.
Children in a stress response try to increase their status to make themselves feel better. But the
teacher is also likely projecting a higher status in response to the child’s behaviour, which is a threat
to the child’s status and further activates their red brain.
This leads to verbal and/or physical abuse.
The teacher needs to relax themselves to calm the situation. Increase the child’s status by
reminding them of something they did well recently.

3. Distraction
Respectfully distract them
 4. Sensory activity
Drink water, run, walk around, swing on a swing, sing a song, play with kinetic sand. The red brain
wants to do something to get rid of the extra energy!
This is dependent on the child, you need to know your student.

How to keep the survival brain calm

Does someone ​see m​ e?
Some children seek out validation and reassurance - they need to keep being
S​ome reassured that people know they are there and care. They need this from
someone they have an established relationship is.

Show me I ​belong!​
B​oys Need to feel a sense of belonging, different for every child.

​ appening.​
Tell me what is h
Children want to know what’s coming next so that they know they are safe. E.g.
H​ate children who need to know what we are doing and where we are going on camp,
or those children who become anxious when they don’t know what the schedule
for the day is.

Give them a sense of ​control.​

C​arrots Can change their behaviour by giving them special jobs, responsibilities, choice,
and a level of control.

Most OSR children will need less of this as they establish new templates. Autistic children will need this
consistently, as they won’t change in the same way.

Emotional resilience
Resilience = the ability to bounce back from difficulties
Emotional resilience = bouncing back to a state of emotional control, first two to three years are the most
important time to do this.
Playing peek-a-boo:
● When you cover face activates the sympathetic response, they don’t feel like they are seen
● When you uncover your face this activates their parasympathetic response, calming them
Making them slightly anxious, e.g. the little piggy on the toes game, and then reassuring them at the end of
the game, teaches children emotional resilience by guiding them between the sympathetic and
parasympathetic system.
Children have to learn to feel a little anxious, scared, uncomfortable. This is a teachable zone! They are
learning emotional resilience.

Children who spend their first 1,000 days in an environment where they don’t feel safe, don’t learn to
regulate their emotions/emotional resilience. Children need their parasympathetic system to be activated
thousands of times in order to learn emotional resilience.

Anxiety is the same thing as a lack of emotional resilience.

More and more children have a lack of emotional resilience.

All children need experiences feeling:

● Nervous
● Anxious
● Scared
...to a tolerable level - this is dependent on knowing your student. OSR children have a thinner line between
tolerable and intolerable, when the stress response is activated. ​Children need to be in the outside world,
away from their parents, experiencing the uncomfortable at a tolerable level.

Devices hold children in a stressed state for a long period of time, activating the sympathetic system
without activating the parasympathetic system.

Increasing emotional resilience

Throw kids curve balls sometimes! On purpose, you need to make them feel nervous/anxious/angry in a
controlled way, so they can practice being in a tolerably uncomfortable way, and then activating the
parasympathetic system.

Don’t practice this in high-stress subjects/times, e.g. maths. Do it somewhere else, e.g. art. Get the TA to
work with them, activate their stress response.

An example: “I’m going to tell you at some point during art to stop your work. I know that stresses you out.
You’re going to walk over to the wall, put both hands onto it, and count to ten. Then you can go back to
your work. You can then go back to your work. Breathe deeply if you get really worked up about it.”

Later that day: “Remember in art how I asked you to stop? You got upset, but you calmed yourself down by
breathing. You did such a good job!” (This is myelination, by replaying the positive choice!)
Continue myelination by practising in different situations, e.g. PE.

Kapa haka is great for this: they feel belonging, calm and control. You can then put them into a tolerably
challenging situation, but which also activates the parasympathetic system through foot stomping, rhythm,
deep breathing, and other physiological calming techniques. Thus both their sympathetic and
parasympathetic systems are being activated in turn.