EXECUTIVE SKILLS AND ITS FEATURES

What are the Executive Functioning Skills?

Before we get too far into Executive Function, we need to understand what it means.

This is a formal description: “The executive functions are a set of processes that all have to do with managing oneself and one's resources in order to achieve a goal. It is an umbrella term for the neurologically-based skills involving mental control and self-regulation.”

Executive function is the ability to organize and manage our thoughts, actions, and emotions in order to initiate, sustain, and complete a task.

It also helps us to plan, manage and organize time.

You will find between 3 and 8 skills included with Executive Function. For the sake of this discussion, we are going to talk about the 3 main skills first and then break it down into the remaining 5 skills.

There are 3 main skills that are included in the umbrella of Executive Function.

These include:

– Working Memory (being able to keep information in mind for future reference, such as reading a passage and then answering questions about that passage).
– Cognitive Flexibility (also known as Flexible Thinking. Being able to come up and think of multiple ways of doing something).
– Inhibitory Control (or self-control, being able to ignore distractions and resist temptations).

In short, Executive Function is like the CEO of your brain.

How does Executive Functioning Work?

Executive Function helps us to manage time, pay attention and switch focus, plan and organize, remember details, and do things based on our experiences.

These are higher functioning skills that come from the frontal lobe of the brain.

Good executive function skills depend on healthy and formed frontal lobes (right and left), located in the top front part of the brain, right behind your forehead.

The frontal lobes control over many body functions. This part of the brain also continues to develop over adolescents into adulthood.

Some of the functions of the frontal lobes include:

– Managing body movement (motor function)
– emotions
– attention
– motivation

And other thinking functions such as:

– Decision-making
– judgment
– abstract reasoning
– planning and completing tasks
– working memory (storing and using details to function)
– meeting goals.

To understand this even more, here are 6 steps your brain typically works through with good executive function skills:

1. Analyze a task. Figure out what needs to be done.
2. Plan how to handle the task.
3. Get organized. Break down the plan into a series of steps.
4. Figure out how much time is needed to carry out the plan, and set aside the time.
5. Make adjustments as needed
6. Finish the task in the time allotted.

If executive functioning is working well and the task is fairly simple, the brain may go through these steps in a matter of seconds. If your child has weak executive skills, performing even a simple task can be challenging.

MATHS! Parents you need to get involved

MATHS! Parents you need to get involved

Math is one of the trickiest subject that is sometimes difficult to explain to a child. However, it can also be interesting if it is been taught from concrete to abstract. One of the prominent problems of transition from one educational level to another is mathematics because it is help in high regard for assessment and progress of the child. A lot of factors influence the learning outcome of a child. More so, mathematics if taught from concrete to abstract it develops in the child ability to understand the abstract. Play is essential during the early years of a child and so therefore it is necessary that a child should be taught mathematics using concrete objects.

However, the roles of teacher and parents cannot be neglected in the success of a child learning mathematics. Although, teachers are mostly seen as the only major influencer in children learning. The role of a teacher is only limited in the classroom and can only contribute to the development of the child only in the classroom. Parents however, can reinforce whatever their children learn in school by having their child measure ingredients for making a recipe, look for shapes and patterns in real life, engage the child in problem solving games, play card or board games, encourage your child to track or graph scores or stats for a favorite team, ask your child to count their favorite commodity in the grocery store, or to estimate the total.

MATHS! Parents you need to get involved

Math is one of the trickiest subject that is sometimes difficult to explain to a child. However, it can also be interesting if it is been taught from concrete to abstract. One of the prominent problems of transition from one educational level to another is mathematics because it is help in high regard for assessment and progress of the child. A lot of factors influence the learning outcome of a child. More so, mathematics if taught from concrete to abstract it develops in the child ability to understand the abstract. Play is essential during the early years of a child and so therefore it is necessary that a child should be taught mathematics using concrete objects.

However, the roles of teacher and parents cannot be neglected in the success of a child learning mathematics. Although, teachers are mostly seen as the only major influencer in children learning. The role of a teacher is only limited in the classroom and can only contribute to the development of the child only in the classroom. Parents however, can reinforce whatever their children learn in school by having their child measure ingredients for making a recipe, look for shapes and patterns in real life, engage the child in problem solving games, play card or board games, encourage your child to track or graph scores or stats for a favorite team, ask your child to count their favorite commodity in the grocery store, or to estimate the total.