Scientific Foundations and References

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The Regulatory Reading Framework emerged through clinical observation. The scientific literature did not create the observations, but helped provide language, structure, and context for patterns that repeatedly appeared across practice.

The references below represent some of the fields and works that informed the development of the framework. They offer context for understanding nervous system organization, physiological regulation, state-dependent learning, and the relationship between conditions and human experience.

This framework is rooted in clinical observation. The literature helped organize what clinical observation had already made impossible to ignore.

Interoception and Bodily Awareness

The concept of access to internal states and how physiological condition shapes perception and behavior.

• Craig, A. D. (2009). How do you feel — now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 59-70.
• Critchley, H. D., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2017). Interoception and emotion. Current Opinion in Psychology, 17, 7-14.
• Quattrocki, E., & Friston, K. (2014). Autism, oxytocin and interoception. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 47, 369-378.

Predictive Processing and State-Dependence

How the nervous system generates predictions and how current physiological states influence what becomes accessible.

• Barrett, L. F., & Simmons, W. K. (2015). Interoceptive predictions in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(7), 419-429.
• Clark, A. (2013). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 36(3), 181-204.
• Friston, K. J., Stephan, K. E., Montague, R., & Dolan, R. J. (2014). Computational psychiatry: the brain as a phantastic organ of adaptation. The Lancet Psychiatry, 2(3), 248-256.

Developmental Neuroscience

How nervous systems develop and organize across time, including critical windows and developmental trajectories.

• Porges, S. P. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation. WW Norton & Company.
• Schore, A. N. (2001). Effects of a secure attachment relationship on right brain development, affect regulation, and infant mental health. Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(1-2), 7-66.
• Siegel, D. J. (2012). The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Become. Guilford Press.

Embodied Cognition and Enaction

The understanding that cognition is deeply rooted in bodily experience and that mind emerges through interaction with environment.

• Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. Basic Books.
• Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press.
• Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(4), 625-636.

Ecological Psychology

How organisms interact with and perceive their environment, and how perception is structured by action possibilities.

• Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Houghton Mifflin.
• Gibson, E. J., & Pick, A. D. (2000). An Ecological Approach to Perceptual Learning and Development. Oxford University Press.
• Turvey, M. T. (1992). Affordances and prospective control: An outline of the ontology. Ecological Psychology, 4(3), 173-187.

Developmental Systems Theory

Understanding development as emergent from dynamic interactions between organism and environment.

• Oyama, S. (2000). The Ontogeny of Information: Developmental Systems and Evolution. Duke University Press.
• Thelen, E., & Smith, L. B. (1994). A Dynamic Systems Approach to the Development of Cognition and Action. MIT Press.
• Gottlieb, G. (2002). Individual Development and Evolution: The Genesis of Novel Behavior. Oxford University Press.

Autism and Neurodiversity Research

Clinical and phenomenological understanding of autistic nervous system organization and neurodivergent experience.

• Dawson, M., Mottron, L., & Gernsbacher, M. A. (2008). Learning in autism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(3), 101-109.
• Grandin, T., & Panek, R. (2013). The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Sasson, N. J., & Morrison, K. E. (2019). First impressions of adults with autism improve with diagnostic disclosure and increased autism knowledge of peers. Autism, 23(1), 50-59.
• Sinclair, J. (1993). Don't mourn for us. Our Voice Newsletter, 1(3).

Communication Sciences

Understanding communication as a physiological and relational process, not simply a behavioral output.

• Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics (Vol. 3, pp. 41-58). Academic Press.
• Scheflen, A. E. (1973). Communicational Structure: Analysis of a Psychotherapy Transaction. Indiana University Press.
• Ozonoff, S., Dawson, G., & McPartland, J. (2002). A Parent's Guide to High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder: How to Meet the Challenges and Help Your Child Thrive. Guilford Press.

Co-Regulation and Relational Neurobiology

How nervous systems mutually influence one another and how relational contexts shape physiological organization.

• Gee, D. G., Gabard-Durnam, L., Telzer, E. H., Humphreys, K. L., Goff, B., Shapiro, M., ... & Tottenham, N. (2014). Maternal buffering of human amygdala-prefrontal circuitry during childhood but not during adolescence. Psychological Science, 25(11), 2067-2078.
• Hofer, M. A. (1984). Relationships as regulators: A psychobiologic perspective on bereavement. Psychosomatic Medicine, 46(3), 183-197.
• Slade, A. (2005). Parental reflective functioning: An introduction. Attachment & Human Development, 7(3), 269-281.