Regulating the Developing Brain

Enhancing Clinical Neurofeedback Skills with Children and Adolescents

with Anna Morrell, LCMHC, BCN

Research is revealing that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted typical routines, rituals, and socialization for all children and has most significantly affected those already suffering developmental impacts. Our children are stressed, dysregulated, and need increasing support to navigate our unpredictable and all too often threatening world. There is a growing body of research demonstrating that neurofeedback regulates affect, executive functioning, and stress management.

This course will focus on skills related to neurofeedback assessment, recognizing EEG patterns, cultivating intention, sensory modulation, and expressive arts psychotherapy in neurofeedback sessions. We will illustrate how this approach works through case vignettes, highlighting how to integrate psychotherapy and neurofeedback within each weekly topic. Topics will include the impact of the pandemic and social isolation, social media, developmental trauma and attachment, and the special issues of transitional aged youth.

In this practical guide to strengthening your neurofeedback skills with children and adolescents, participants will learn techniques based on 12 years of experience and research to help calm the impulsive, wiggly child; engage the eye-rolling, distracted teen; and help these children cultivate healthy, life-long affect regulation.

This course entitles you to 8 CE Credit Hours.

Learning Objectives

Week 1: Supporting Healthy Regulation
The session includes an overview of brain development and how adverse childhood experiences impact the development of the Default Mode, Salience, and Central Executive Networks.

1. Participants will be able to identify two structural changes that occur throughout childhood that have a direct impact on affect regulation
2. Participants will be able to identify at least two abnormal structural changes in childhood that have a direct impact on affect dysregulation.
3. Participants will be able to describe the brains hierarchy for function throughout the developmental process and
4. Participants will be able to describe why affect regulation is the foundation of healthy development

Week 2: - Assessment
The session includes review of a comprehensive assessment developed for neurofeedback providers and discussion of the importance of psychoeducation for both the young patient and their caregivers.

1. Participants will be able to describe at least two components of a comprehensive neurofeedback assessment.
2. Participants will be able to list at least 2 valid measurement tools they can incorporate into their initial and ongoing assessment
3. 3-Participants will describe a framework for incorporating psychoeducation with children, adolescents, and their caregivers
4. Participants will be able to describe the arousal model

Week 3: Reading the Child and Adolescent EEG
The session includes ways to gain information from the EEG, including how and why to look at mini-maps, and EEG patterns throughout course of treatment. Case examples will be explored.

1. Participants will be able to identify three important components of EEG assessment
2-Participants will be able to describe common EEG patterns seen in different developmental stages
3- Participants will be able to identify normative frequency amplitudes based on developmental age

Week 4: Protocol Development:
The session includes discussion of protocol decision trees pulled from research, neuroanatomy, and the client’s individual assessment. Case examples will be explored.

1. Participants will be able to identify the use of the Posterior Dominant Rhythm in protocol development.
2. Participants will be able to identify initial training protocols based on the combined EEG and comprehensive arousal assessment.
3. Participants will be able to describe their rationale for protocol adjustments according to on-going assessment of their clients’ responses to neurofeedback training.

Week 5: Cultivating Intention and Curiosity throughout training
The session explores skills to enhance client outcomes through goal setting, learning theory, and the therapeutic relationship during neurofeedback training sessions.

1. Participants will be able to list at least two essential elements of informed consent for the child and adolescent patient as well as their caregivers
2. Participants will be able to design developmentally appropriate neurofeedback goals for their individual clients
3. Participants will be able to describe how to apply learning theory concepts to maximize the positive impact of training

Week 6: Sensory Modulation
The session focuses on incorporating sensory modulation techniques into the training sessions as well as out-of-the-chair supports for regulation

1. Participants will be able to describe the 8 sensory systems
1. Participants will be able to identify at least three sensory modulation techniques that can be used during a training session
1. Participants will be able to describe at least two sensory modulation techniques that can be used between sessions to maximize affect regulation and consolidation of learning

Week 7: The Long Developmental Road: Special topics
The session will include discussion of the impacts that attachment, early childhood experiences, and transition into adulthood have on children and adolescents. . Case Examples will be explored
1. Participants will be able to describe the rationale for including caregiver regulation in their neurofeedback treatment plans
2. Participants will be able to describe how early experiences of neglect and trauma can impact brain development
3. Participants will be able to identify three components for treatment planning transitional aged youth

Week 8: The Long Developmental Road: Special Topics Cont'd
The session will include discussion of the impacts that pandemic social isolation, social media, substance use, and inflammation have on children and adolescents and on the adults they will become. . Case Examples will be explored.
1. Participants will be able to identify EEG patterns related to inflammation
2. Participants will be able to identify EEG patterns related to substance use and to psychotropics
3. Participants will be able to describe the impact of social isolation on the development of the default mode, salience, and central executive networks.
4. Participants will be able to identify at least two brain structures that are impacted by social media and screen time.

Purchase this offer for only $350

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Your Presenter

Anna Morrell, LCMHC, BCN

From an early age, I recognized the healing qualities of the arts, from expressing thoughts and feeling states to the regulating and grounding characteristics in the act of creation. I pursued a graduate degree in Clinical Art Therapy. In 2010, I was introduced to Neurofeedback and have since been dedicated to this as the foundational approach. The potential of regulation and organization of self is something I have only consistently seen with neurofeedback. I specialize in work with children, adolescents, and caregivers, incorporating Neurofeedback, Art Therapy, and Sensory Modulation into clinical sessions with those impacted by developmental trauma and neurodiversity.

In addition to counseling, I offer mentoring, consultation, and original courses such as Up-Down Regulation, Regulation and the Developing Mind, the EEGer Online Practicum, and I co-facilitate Neurofeedback in a Clinical Practice. I hold dual independent mental health counseling licenses in North Carolina and Massachusetts and am Board Certified in Neurofeedback. I am a part of the dynamic team at The Institute for Applied Neuroscience in Asheville, NC.