He’s So Smart, But…

Prepared for the Office of Head Start by ICF International

He’s So Smart, But…

Why Executive Function Skills are as Important as Math and

ReadingPresented by Ann Janney-Schultz,

VA Head Start ECE T/TA SystemCreating Connections to Shining Stars, July, 2013


Session Objectives

Participants will:• Understand what executive functions are.• Understand why they are important.• Connect executive function skills with early learning

frameworks and standards.• Learn strategies for helping children develop and

improve their executive functions.


What are Executive Functions?

• Brain functions used to manage attention, emotions, and pursuit of goals.

• Emerge during preschool years and don’t fully mature until early adulthood.

• More predictive of school success than IQ.

• Cognitive Control abilities that depend on the prefrontal cortex.


Executive Functions

• Cognitive control functions involved in goal-oriented behaviors.

• Different from automatic, reactive behaviors


Executive Functions

Core Executive Functions• Inhibitory Control (self control)

• Working Memory• Cognitive Flexibility

Higher Order Executive Functions:• Problem solving

• Reasoning • Planning


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.


Inhibitory Control: Focus

Test Your Focus

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/06/07/technology/20100607-distraction-filtering-demo.html?_r=0






Effortful Control

• Basis for self regulation.• Match demands of the situation-sometimes

inhibiting, sometimes motivating- Stop and Go functions.


Inhibitory Control: Discipline

Having the discipline to stay on task• Persistence: Seeing a task through to completion

even when it is tedious or difficult.• Begin able to stay focused despite distractions.• Continuing to work although the reward may be a

long time coming.


Evidence shows that discipline accounts for over twice as much

variance in final grades as does IQ, even in college.

(Duckworth and Seligman, 2005)


Inhibitory Control

Being able to:1. Stay Focused despite distraction2. Stay on task and complete the task, even in the

face of temptation or frustration3. Exercise self control by considering a response

before acting—controlling behavior, responses, and language (not putting your foot in your mouth)


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.


Working Memory

• Critical to ability to see connections between seemingly unconnected things.

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


Cognitive Flexibility: Creativity

The ability to easily and quickly switch perspectives of the focus of attention, flexibly adjusting to changed demands or priorities—being able to

Think Creatively!

Thinking about ways to solve problems that no one else has considered before…


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.


Why Are Executive Functions Important?

Executive Function Skills important for:• School readiness more than are IQ or entry-level

reading or math. (Blair, 2002, 2003, Blair and Razza, 2007, Normandeau and Guay, 1998)

• School Success: Working Memory and inhibitory control each independently predict both math and reading competence throughout the school years. (Adele Diamond, 2012)

• Job Success: Poor EF Skills lead to poor productivity and difficulty finding and keeping a job.

Executive Function skills are critical for cognitive, social and psychological development.


EF’s and Poverty

• Children in poverty are susceptible to cumulative risk, an accumulation of risk factors such as more negative life stress, poor access to health care, more mental health and substance abuse problems in the home, perhaps less than ideal residential situations.

• These factors have lasting impact into adulthood. • They disrupt neurobiological systems, especially self-

regulation systems.

ECLKC/NCQTL/Front Porch Series


Executive Functions and Poverty

• Children in lower-income families evidence lower levels of effortful control.

• Parental behaviors that would support the development of effortful control are observed less often in lower-income families.


EF’s 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)


Executive Functions and Early Childhood

• 46% of kindergarten teachers, in a survey by Robert Pianta and others from UVA, reported that at least half of the children in their classrooms have problems following directions.

• Head Start teachers, in another study, reported that more than a quarter of their students exhibited serious self-control-related negative behaviors.


EF’s and Early Learning Standards

Domain Elements closely associated with Executive Functions:• Head Start Child Development Early Learning

Framework (HSCDELF)– Social Emotional Development: Self Regulation– Approaches to Learning: Persistence and Attentiveness

• Virginia Foundation Blocks for Early Learning (VFBEL)– Personal and Social Development Foundation (PSDF): Block

2: Self Control– PSDF Block 3: Approaches to Learning


How to Support Executive Functions

Research has shown that diverse activities can improve children’s executive functions, including:• Computer games• Aerobics, martial arts and yoga,• Mindfulness• Playing a musical instruments• School curricula that support creative thinking and

hands-on learning.


Stroop Color Word Test

• Work in groups of 3– One person takes the test– One person marks right or wrong on the cards– One person is the timer

• Read each word on the cards as fast as you can.• Say the color of the letters rather than the word the

letters spell. • When you finish, switch roles.


Effortful Control and Attention

• Focusing attention• Shifting attention• Inhibitory Control• Examples:

– A child is engaged in one project, and it’s time to clean up and start something else.

– A child 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 child who is accidentally bumped by another child automatically responds by hitting or pushing back.


Day Night Exercise

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPmMNbgz3Es

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPmMNbgz3Es

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPmMNbgz3Es


School Readiness

• Effortful control represents learning readiness, not just content readiness, so it predicts kindergarten gains in multiple areas.

• Effortful control can predict academic competence in addition to and over and above IQ and verbal skills.

• It also predicts school readiness in areas such as social-emotional competence, school engagement, and positive teacher-child relationship.


EF Gains in Children

• Children with the poorest EF’s gain the most from strategies that support development of Executive Functions.

• EF training helps level the playing field and reduce the achievement gap between more and less advantaged children.


Strategies that Support EF’s

• Engaging in social pretend play that includes planning a specific scenario with roles and props. The teacher continually brings the children back to the scenario by asking questions about what they want to do and what they will do next.


Effortful Control

Simon Says…

• Simon Says-example of inhibiting control under one circumstance (Simon didn’t say) but responding to the command under another (Simon Says)


Strategies

• Buddy reading, with each child taking a specific role-reader or listener. Each child gets a card with a picture of a mouth or a picture of an ear to remind them of their role—scaffolding the children to practice these skills and increasing ability to follow directions.

• Scaffolding from theteacher is critical.


Strategies

• Pride in accomplishments increases self confidence. Help children recognize their authentic accomplishments.

• Communicate the expectation that a child can be successful if s/he practices or keeps working.

• Continue to increase the challenge each time the child has had a success.


Engage Families

• Research indicates that about half of the effects of poverty in early childhood relate to family and parenting factors.

• If we can promote effective parenting and family functioning in early childhood, we may be able to prevent lifelong problems for children.

Lengua, ECLKC Front Porch Broadcast; Paul Tough, How Children Succeed.


Engaging parents

• Evans and Schamberg at Cornell University examined the EF skill of working memory-the ability to keep a number of facts in your head at the same time.

• Remember Simon?• Encourage parents to

play memory games with their children.

http://www.freegames.ws/games/kidsgames/simon/simon.htm




Interactions that Support Higher Order EF’s

Higher Order Executive Function Skills• Problem solving• Reasoning • Planning

Measured by CLASS Instructional Support Domain

Concept Development-• Analysis and Reasoning

– Why and how questions– Problem Solving– Prediction/experimentation.

• Creating: – Brainstorming– Planning– Producing


Your Ideas?

• Your own strategies: Think Pair ShareCore Executive Functions

• Inhibitory Control (self control)• Working Memory

• Cognitive FlexibilityHigher Order Executive Functions:

• Problem solving• Reasoning • Planning


Sources

• CLASS Dimensions Guide: www.Teachstone.org • Dumbro, Amy et al. Powerful Interactions: How to Connect with Children

to Extend their Learning www.naeyc.org • Galinsky, Ellen (2010) Mind in the Making. HarperCollins. New York.• Lengua, Liliana (2013) Foundations for Social, Emotional and Academic

Competence: Economic Disadvantage and the Development of Effortful Control ECLKC Front Porch Broadcast calls. May 2013 https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/teaching/Broadcast%20Calls/000721-fps-broadcast-call-effortful-control.pdf;YW5uamFubmV5c2NodWx0eg==

• Tough, Paul (2012) How Children Succeed .Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. New York. (pp. 17, 18)

http://www.teachstone.org/

http://www.naeyc.org/

https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/teaching/Broadcast%20Calls/000721-fps-broadcast-call-effortful-control.pdf;YW5uamFubmV5c2NodWx0eg



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He’s So Smart, But…