Teaching Children Self-control through Focused Play
Research has shown that poor self-regulation skills in the early childhood years are predictive of a wide array of adverse adult outcomes, covering a spectrum such as poorer work functioning, higher rates of unemployment and criminality, poorer mental health and more relationship difficulties.
Professor Dione Healey, a Clinical Psychologist at the University of Otago, has a PhD in Psychology with extensive clinical and research experience in the area of self-regulation in young mokopuna. She developed ENGAGE™ to help children develop their self-regulation skills as these have been proven to be critical for learning and everyday life activities.
While ENGAGE™ was conceived and developed by Dione Healey, it has grown and been adapted in collaboration with many others, including her students, research assistants, and academic collaborators. One of the key collaborators and partners in the development of the early childhood education-based version of ENGAGE™ along with Otago Innovation has been the ENGAGE™ staff at the Methodist Mission Southern who have worked very closely with Dione on adaption of ENGAGE™ within early childhood education settings.
