Lend Me Your Frontal Lobe

Session Four

Outcomes

• Learn strategies to teach or enhance: Self-monitoring skills

Attention skills

Inhibition skills

Discussion from Session 3

• Which executive function strategies from session 3 did you implement in your classroom?

• What impact did this strategy have on targeted students/your entire class?

Executive Function: Self-Monitoring

Definition: checks work, keeps track of own behavior and learning, finishes a task to ensure attainment of goal, understands consequence of his/her actions and learning, puts the “brakes” on one’s own behavior and thinking.

Executive Function: Self-Monitoring

Impact: tends to act without sufficient forethought, interrupts with own thoughts & comments, works quickly and oftentimes is messy, doesn’t listen to others, difficulty following directions and doesn’t do assigned tasks carefully.

Strategy Review How do I teach self-monitoring skills?

Self-Monitoring ActivityHow do I teach self-monitoring skills?

Goal-Plan-Do-Review

Plan-Do-Review (The Super 3)

The Big 6

Executive FunctionAttention

Definition: Sustaining attention on tasks that are not of high interest; screening out distractions; knowing what to focus on and what to ignore

Executive Function: Attention

Impact: The student can not focus their attention on a task and keep focusing as long as necessary. Sometimes their problem is one of selection.

“It’s like listening to the radio in the car…”

“It’s like being a Pentium IV computer with a really slow modem…”

Strategy ReviewHow do I teach attention skills?

Executive Function: Inhibition

• The Marshmallow Study

• The Study Revisited

Executive Function: Inhibition

Definition: Controls impulses, appropriately stops and modulates ones own behavior at the proper time or proper context

Executive Function:Inhibition

Impact: students call out, can not stop their behavior at the appropriate time, including stopping actions and thoughts, are seen as wild, restless, impulsive, unable to control their words and bodies so they need more supervision than others

Strategy ReviewHow do I teach inhibition skills?

Points to Remember about Behavior Change

• Use real life to teach skills (real life tasks vs. isolated study skills class).

• Take a teaching vs. a punishing approach.

• Collaborate with the student to develop goals and strategies.

• Focus on the desired outcome

• Use strategies to encourage new habits and to provide positive feedback.

Until executive skills are fully developed in students, parents and teachers act as

“surrogate” frontal lobes.

Three primary ways to develop executive skills:

1. Change the environment to reduce the impact of weak executive skills.

2. Teach and model executive skills.

3. Use incentives to get students to use skills that are hard for them.

The Critical Role of Professionals

Monitor the balance between teachers’ and/or parents’ tendency to do too much or not enough for the student.

Your Next Steps

• Talk in table groups about steps that can be taken to continue to implement strategies to support executive skill development in your students.

Ideas

• What ideas did your group generate?

We are here to support you!

The Student Services Team