Day: November 5, 2020

As you may recall from the introduction, executive functions do not fully develop until adulthood. This means that it is likely that you will work with adults who are still developing these skills, whether they are employees or families.

Understanding the impact of executive functioning on daily tasks and interactions can help you shift your approach to working with members of your program’s community. Here are just a few suggestions:

Provide meeting agendas: Let people know exactly what you will be discussing and why it is important.

Prepare for meetings: Help employees shift their focus from their day to the meeting. Guide them in a quick self-check-in activity that encourages them to let go of what is on their mind before the meeting and prepares them to be active participants in the meeting.

Encourage problem-solving: Ensure that team members and families are active participants when coming up with solutions to problems. Use brainstorming as a tool to promote creative problem solving and collaboration.

Share meeting recaps: After a meeting, write up a summary of the meeting and share it with attendees. Be sure to include details of agreed-upon action items and important upcoming dates.

Delegate: Create buy-in and a sense of community responsibility by delegating tasks to team members. You may need to practice cognitive flexibility yourself because the way they complete tasks may be very different from how you complete tasks.

Accountability: Help your staff members by holding them accountable for the tasks they are assigned or agree to complete. Create a culture where team members hold each other accountable for their work and the quality of the program initiatives.

Ask questions: Encourage others to think deeply and reflect on their plans or intentions. If you think a person may have trouble with time management, ask questions geared to helping the person identify steps they can take to accomplish the task in a timely manner.  You can also ask questions after the fact that encourages the individual to assess their performance, successes, and challenges.

Breaks: If you are planning a long meeting or professional development event, be sure to make time for breaks and movement opportunities.

Mentors: Some people benefit from working with a mentor. Mentors can model strategies for organization, planning, and time-management.

Organizational tools: Develop forms that are easy to use and help teachers organize their thoughts, plan curriculum, and setting goals.

Technology: Use technology to set meetings and communicate rather than writing things down on a piece of paper that could get misplaced.

Talk about executive functions: Share information about executive functions with adults who are not aware of these skills and how they help us navigate life. Discuss strategies for improving these skills and why it is so important for adults to have these skills in place in order to work effectively with children. See this article for more information.

For the main article Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article How are Executive Functions and Executive Assistants Alike?, CLICK HERE

For the article Examples of Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article Promoting the Development of Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

Different strategies can be used to support the development of executive functions.  Remember, the area of the brain where these skills reside is not fully developed until early adulthood. These strategies are helpful for people of all ages.  Keep in mind, different strategies will work for different people. Remain creative and open to altering these suggestions to work for you and the children in your care.

• Consistent routines- Learning the predictable flow of the daily routine is an important executive function. Create a daily schedule that promotes security and has a few downtime periods as possible. Transition children in small groups, rather than moving large groups through the routine all at once. For example, send a few children to wash their hands before snack rather than having all of the children line up and wait for their turn to wash hands.
• Advanced warnings- If part of the routine is going to change, it is important to let children know in advance. A common example is to let children know that they have a few more minutes to play before it is time to clean up. This warning will help children practice cognitive flexibility
• Manage stimuli in the environment– Decrease clutter, Quiet areas should be set up away from more active areas. Small group workspaces should be arranged to minimize distractions. Large group seating should be arranged to limit distractions. You may have to put a piece of fabric over the block shelf to minimize distractions during large group time.
• Break tasks down into smaller chunks– Whenever possible, break tasks down into multiple steps. Walk children through each small step until they have mastered the skill.
• Visual cues – Here are some examples of visual cues:
  • Visual schedules of the daily routine
  • Illustrated steps to common tasks, such as handwashing
  • Pictures of what learning centers look like when they are cleaned up properly
  • Visual cues on calendars for special events, such as birthdays, holidays, etc.
  • Pointing, gesturing, or the use of sign language,
  • Graphic organizers
  • Illustrated rules to games
• Visual time displays – Incorporate the use of egg timers, countdown clocks, sand timers, gel timers, These tools allow children who cannot yet tell time to see a visual of how much time they have to wait for a turn or to move to the next activity.
• Checklists lists – Older children will benefit from creating to-do lists and checklists to keep track of the steps of large projects or tasks.
• Brain breaks – Some children will benefit from taking breaks during sustained periods of focus. This strategy works well when you break tasks down into smaller chunks. Breaks can be given in between chunks. For example, if a child has to read a passage for homework, you could divide the reading into small sections and offer a movement break between each section.
• Proximity – when you notice a child is off task or having trouble staying focused, move closer to the child. Sometimes your presence will help the child refocus attention.
• Opportunities to practice making decisions– Offer choices throughout the day. Whenever possible, give children two options and allow them to make a choice. We don’t automatically become good decision-makers without having the chance to practice when the stakes are small.
• Opportunities to practice making a plan – Ask children to think about a play scenario before they begin their play in the dramatic play center. They don’t have to plan out all parts of their play, or even stick strictly to their original plan, but asking them what they would like to do before they begin can focus their attention on their play and give them a chance to practice making and following a plan.
• Understanding – most importantly, it is necessary for educators to recognize that executive functions are still developing in children. Not every child of the same age will be able to focus for the same length of time or regulate their emotions in the same manner. These skills must be taught and practiced, just like math and literacy skills!

For the main article Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article, How are Executive Functions and Executive Assistants Alike?, CLICK HERE

For the article Examples of Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article Executive Functions and Adults, CLICK HERE

There have been many studies conducted on the executive functions of the brain in recent years. Depending on the resource you find, you may see different areas or skills associated with executive functions. You may also see the skills described or named something different from the list below.  Let’s take some time to explore some of these associated skills in more detail.

Working memory: Working memory is the ability to retain information for a period of time in order to use it in the future.  For example, a child needs to have working memory to follow multiple-step directions. They must be able to remember all of the steps and the order in which the steps were given, to accomplish the task. Children also use working memory to answer questions about stories they hear or passages that they read when taking tests.

You may notice that young children are not very good at following multiple step directions. This is because the area of the brain responsible for executive functions, such as working memory is the last to fully develop, which occurs in early adulthood.

Cognitive flexibility: This is described as the ability to think about solutions to problems from multiple angles. People who are good at brainstorming have strong cognitive flexibility as opposed to people who stick to one and only one way of doing things. Cognitive flexibility helps us deal with unexpected changes. It also includes the ability to take on another person’s point of view.

Attention control: This refers to a person’s ability to maintain an appropriate level of focus regardless of the external stimuli in the environment. In some cases, a child may have difficulty sustaining their attention for long periods of time, especially on non-preferred activities. That same child may be able to focus intensely on a preferred activity, almost to the exclusion of other stimuli in the environment.

Inhibition: This is the ability to refrain from acting out when feeling strong emotions. It can also be described as the ability to control impulses and think before acting. When children are young they are very impulsive, which is the opposite of inhibition. They see a toy they want and they grab it. As children mature and develop inhibition, they are less likely to grab toys from others and better able to use language to request the toy or come up with a plan to play with the toy together.

Self-regulation: This is the ability to manage strong emotions in appropriate ways. It includes things like having the tools to calm down when upset and to express a socially acceptable amount of excitement in public settings.

Organization: Placing items in a way that is logical and conducive to accomplishing tasks. It includes the ability to visualize where items should be placed in an efficient way and the ability to recall where items have been placed in the past. Think of a child’s backpack or binder for school.  A child with strong organization skills will have all of the math materials dated and placed in order behind the math tab and all of the science materials in the same manner. A child who struggles with organization will misplace work often because things are not in the correct spot.

Planning: Planning requires the ability to imagine the tasks that are required and the order in which they must be done. The ability to determine which tasks are most important and prioritize those tasks first. It also includes knowing which items are required to complete tasks and the ability to acquire those objects. Planning can include time management as well.

Initiative: This is the ability to start and continue the required steps to complete a task independently. It can be related to motivation, which can be intrinsic or extrinsic.

Self-monitoring: This is the awareness of and ability to assess one’s mental functioning. It is the ability to recognize that you are off task and bring focus back to the task at hand. It is a reflective skill that allows children to see how well they are performing and to make adjustments.

Remember, these skills are developing in young children and do not fully mature until we reach adulthood. Be sure to use this knowledge to adjust your expectations of the children in your care.  Be sure to approach these skills with the same intention that you do other skills in your curriculum.  Build their confidence while you build their skills!

For the main article Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

How are Executive Functions and Executive Assistants Alike?, CLICK HERE

For the article Promoting the Development of Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article Executive Functions and Adults, CLICK HERE

Executive functions are a set of skills that allow us to successfully navigate the tasks and challenges of everyday life. They are the skills that we use to help us plan, organize, and follow through with the execution of our plan.

It might be helpful to think about executive functions as the executive assistant of your brain. The list of skills below (left column) is from a sample executive assistant job description from betterteam.com.  Let’s take a look at how these skills relate to executive functioning in the brain (right column):

For the main article Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article Examples of Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article Promoting the Development of Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article Executive Functions and Adults, CLICK HERE

Have you ever had a day when you were just distracted and disorganized; where it felt like your normally centered mind was in complete disarray?  This is not uncommon and it is likely that after taking a short break or getting something to eat, you were able to return to your tasks with a stronger sense of focus and purpose.

The human brain is flooded with messages from the senses on a regular basis. These messages travel through our sense organs and are directed to different parts of the brain for processing, all in the blink of an eye. This command center is responsible for managing every body function, emotion, memory, response, and decision we make.

Touch the back of your head near your neck.  The part of the brain behind this area of your skull is called the brainstem. This area controls the body functions that you don’t have to think about, such as breathing, digestion, sleep cycles, and heart rate. This is the first part of the brain to develop, beginning in the womb.

Now place your hand on the center of your forehead. The area of the brain behind this part of your skull is considered the “thinking area” of the brain.  This most forward area of the brain is where the left and right frontal lobes are located.  These are the last areas of the brain to fully mature, sometimes not fully developing until the mid-20s.

In this month’s newsletter, we will explore a specific set of skills, called executive functions that reside in the frontal lobes of the human brain. These skills are extremely important for children of all ages as they navigate both the academic and social environments of today’s education system.

For the article How are Executive Functions and Executive Assistants Alike?, CLICK HERE

For the article Examples of Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article Promoting the Development of Executive Functions, CLICK HERE

For the article Executive Functions and Adults, CLICK HERE