Recognizing a student’s window of tolerance has been a helpful strategy in how we support our students. Dr. Dan Siegel developed the concept to refer to the optimal range of emotional arousal within which a person can effectively cope with stress. This window may be smaller for neurodivergent individuals. When a person experiences extreme stress that they’re unable to recover from or when they are continuously exposed to stressors without the support or time needed to work through them smoothly, they exit the window of tolerance and enter either hyperarousal or hypoarousal.
Image source: Using Window of Tolerance to help kids regulate
Neurodivergent kids may have a thinner window of tolerance due to:
- Sensory sensitivities: Overwhelming sensory input and processing (loud noises, bright lights, strong smells, certain textures, crowded spaces, too much information, etc.)
- Social challenges: Difficulties in social interactions can lead to emotional dysregulation
- Executive functioning challenges: Struggles with planning, organizing, and regulating emotions
- Uninterrupted or excessive use of technology: access to continuous preferred activity and neurological stimulation from desired content, sounds, and views
- Trauma: Past experiences of trauma
All individuals learn best when they are within their window of tolerance. Getting back into the routines and daily rhythms of the school year can be challenging and takes time. One way staff are supporting students in this transition is in helping them identify and use a set of regulation strategies that work for each individual student. Sometimes referred to as the student’s sensory kit or regulation strategies. The following are some examples of strategies that may be part of a student’s tool kit:
- Hyper-arousal – simple breathing strategies (star breathing, hot chocolate breathing, 2 quick breaths in through the nose and a long exhale through the mouth), drinking from a straw to focus attention and soothe, star jumps to integrate the two sides of the brain, use a weighted blanket to provide deep pressure, or encourage squeezing a stress ball or using stretch bands to release energy
- Hypo-arousal – aromatherapy for smell, gum or mint for chewing/crunching, walking barefoot for body awareness, splashing cold water on hands or face, or listening to music for auditory input
There are many other techniques that I have not included above. Every child is unique, and their window of tolerance may vary, as well as what it is that works best for their body’s unique regulation system.
The Window of Tolerance: How to Better Handle Stress