Strategies for Strengthening the Brain's Executive Functions

Earlier in my career as a teacher and school psychologist, I assessed, diagnosed, and helped to create interventions for children and youth who had difficulty with their executive functioning. Today as teacher educators, we are pleased that our graduates are increasing students' cognitive, metacognitive, and executive functioning in classrooms around the world (as just one example, Texas teacher Diane Dahl blogs on teaching metacognition).

What Are Executive Functions?

Through explicit instruction and modeling, students can come to recognize the importance of taking charge of their executive functioning in their academic endeavors and later in their careers.
Executive functions can be defined as the awareness and directive capacities of the mind. By wielding these skills and abilities, students decide where to focus their attention and which tasks to undertake.

As a general rule of thumb, when students of any age have difficulty completing developmentally appropriate academic tasks on their own, executive functioning may be at the root of the problem.
In the human brain, executive functions are primarily regulated by the prefrontal regions (just behind the forehead) of the frontal lobes. Neuroscientists and psychologists have made significant gains in understanding the brain's executive functioning over the past several decades.

Read the full post at Edutopia.