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Executive Functions are cognitive control abilities that depend on the prefrontal cortex.�

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Executive Functions

Core Executive Functions

  • Inhibitory Control (self control)
  • Working Memory
  • Cognitive Flexibility

Higher Order Executive Functions:

  • Problem solving
  • Reasoning
  • Planning

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Executive Functions and Children in Poverty

Children in poverty experience an accumulation of risk factor:

  • poor access to health care
  • mental health and substance abuse problems in the home
  • housing insecurity, food insecurity
  • These factors disrupt neurobiological systems, especially self-regulation systems such as Executive Function.
  • Parents are less likely to support the development of effortful control.

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What is Executive Function?

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Inhibitory Control/Self Control/Effortful Control

  • The ability to resist a strong inclination to do one thing, and instead do what is most appropriate or needed.
    • Resisting acting on impulse
    • Staying focused on what is important-selective or focused attention.
    • Self control- the ability to think before you act, resist temptation, avoid jumping to conclusions.

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Core Executive Functions

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Inhibitory Control: Focus

Core Executive Functions

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READING LEFT TO RIGHT, NAME THE COLOR

XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX

XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX

XXX XXX XXX XXX XXX

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XXX XXX XXX XXX

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NAME THE COLOR

RED BLUE GREEN YELLOW BLUE

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BLUE BLUE RED GREEN BLACK

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BLUE BLUE RED GREEN BLACK

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RED BLUE GREEN YELLOW BLUE

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BLUE GREEN BLACK YELLOW RED

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Inhibitory Control: Discipline and Self Control

Having the discipline to stay on task

  • Persistence: Seeing a task through to completion even when it is tedious or difficult.
  • Being able to stay focused despite distractions.
  • Continuing to work for a future reward.

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Core Executive Functions

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Impulse Control

Marshmallow Test

Core Executive Functions

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Working Memory

  • Holding Information in mind while mentally working with it or while working on something else.
    • Follow a conversation while formulating what you want to say in response.
    • Remembering where something was hidden despite a delay and distractions before you get back to it.
    • Holding in mind what happened earlier and relating it to what is happening now.
    • Relating one idea to another.
    • Relating what you read earlier to what you are learning now.
    • Understanding cause and effect.

Higher Order Executive Function Skills

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Working Memory

Critical to ability to see connections between seemingly unconnected things.

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Critical to Creativity-ability to take apart and re-assemble elements or thoughts in new ways.

Higher Order

Executive Function Skills

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Cognitive Flexibility

  • Ability to change course when what you are doing isn’t working.
  • Ability to adapt to change easily.
  • Ability to take advantage and seize opportunities when they arise, even if it means changing course.

Higher Order Executive Function Skills

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What Do Executive Skill Weaknesses Look Like in Students?

  • Acts without thinking
  • Interrupts others
  • Overreacts to small problems
  • Upset by changes in plans
  • Talks or plays too loudly
  • Resists change of routine
  • Acts wild or out of control
  • Easily overstimulated and has trouble calming down
  • Gets stuck on one topic or activity

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What Do Executive Skill Weaknesses Look Like in Students?

  • Gets overly upset about “little things”
  • Out of control more than peers
  • Low tolerance for frustration
  • Overwhelmed by large assignments
  • Can’t come up with more than one way to solve a problem
  • Doesn’t notice impact of behavior on others

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Strategies that Support�Executive Function Must Be Developed�

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“Reinforcing a skill that isn’t there,

reinforces that the skill isn’t there”

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  • Use visual schedules, checklists, and planners.
  • Break tasks into clear, manageable steps.
  • Provide models or exemplars of completed assignments.
  • Implement daily routines with predictable structures.
  • Encourage students to verbalize their plan before beginning.

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Strategies that Support Executive Functions

Problem Solving

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  • Use videos to teach social skills, daily routines.
  • Provide ongoing, non-judgmental feedback

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Strategies that Support EF’s

Sustained Attention

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Assess how long it will take to complete a task? Then use a timing device.

Can you beat the time?

Can you go longer?

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Catch them doing good-PBS

Incentive Plans- First- Then (reward.)

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Organization has to be taught

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  • Use categories to focus on one topic at a time
  • Identify the main idea and supporting details, categorize them, and encourage student to do the same
  • Have the student practice organizational skills in other settings
  • Create Lists/Agenda on the board
  • Color-Coded Binders
  • Calendars
  • Limit the number of steps in a task
  • Provide part of a sequence and have the student finish it
  • Give cues such as, “Correct, but what do you think will happen next? What do we do next?
  • Structure thinking processes graphically (e.g., time lines, outlines, flow charts, graphs, agendas etc.)
  • Make “agenda” a morning activity. Use picture cues.

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Strategies that Support EF’s

Inhibitory Control

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  • Teach self-regulation techniques (e.g., stop-think-act, deep breathing, yoga, meditation.)
  • Create cue cards or signals for “pause” or “wait”.
  • Use token systems or point systems for self-control.
  • Provide structured choices to reduce impulsivity.

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Strategies that Support EF’s

Set-Shifting & Perseveration

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  • Prepare students for transitions using timers or verbal warnings.
  • Use transition cards or visual cues to shift attention.
  • Practice switching between tasks through games or role play social stories.
  • Offer choices to increase flexibility in thinking and behavior.
  • Praise and reinforce attempts to try new approaches.

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Strategies that Support EF’s

  • Reduce maladaptive behaviors and increase on-task efforts:
    • What are a student’s daily routines?
    • Use of visual cues to facilitate sequencing (agendas)
    • Rehearse prior to each routine

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Executive Functions: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injury

    • Planning and organization
    • Set-Shifting (Cognitive flexibility)and perseverative tendencies
    • Abstract thinking
    • Planning and problem solving
    • Abstract thinking and analogical reasoning
    • Inhibitory control
    • Processing speed
    • Working memory

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Why is mindfulness a superpower?

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Practice Mindfulness

JusTMe Videos for Mindfulness

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Rise and Shine

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Andy Hobson “I am enough.”

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Executive Functions and Mental Health

  • Increase in addictions, ADHD, depression, conduct disorder, and schizophrenia are associated with impaired executive functions.
  • Children with less self-control (more impulsive, less persistent, poor attention regulation) have worse health, earn less and commit more crimes as adults 30 years later (Terri Moffitt et all , 2011, National Academy of Sciences)

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FINGER EXERCISE TO IMPROVE MEMORY

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Effortful Control and Attention

  • Focusing attention
  • Shifting attention
  • Inhibitory Control
  • Examples:
    • A student is engaged in one project, and it’s time to start something else.
    • A student has a task to do-such as set the table as the helper but cannot stay attentive to the task because every time she sees a toy she likes, she is distracted.
    • A student who is accidentally bumped by another child automatically responds by hitting or pushing back.

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