| ID | 1794 |
|---|---|
| Title | Examples of executive function in children? |
| Published | True |
| Body | |
| PWA Dimensions | |
| PWA Question | Examples of executive function in children? |
| PWA Answer |
So, for a young child you might see executive function in simple things. So if a child’s playing with another child, and one child takes a toy that you’re child wants. So not immediately going over and taking that toy from him or her. That involves some executive function so we would call that some sort of inhibition. Your child might use working memory to keep something in mind, so if you have asked the child ok will you go and get your shoes and your socks and come over here so we can get ready to go. Keeping those things in mind would be your child using his or her working memory. Kimberly Cuevas In little kids the first thing you see with respect to executive function is goal directed behavior. Where, for example, you would have to engage in either holding attention on a situation or a set of materials in order to obtain a goal. If you think about that, that’s actually fairly complicated because you have to hold that goal in mind, in working memory, you have to organize your responses in order to obtain that goal and then you have to execute those responses. So that’s one of the first magical things that happens with respect to the emergence of executive function; goal directed behaviour. John Colombo Almost every game is set around one or more aspects of executive functioning. Even just even playing a game requires you to listen to the instructions and then do it. So by definition, playing a game is actually working on executive functioning skills. You can have numerous games that will tweak different bits of that. For example, Simon says, requires you to understand or listen to instruction understand them and do them. you can get to more sophisticated games so for example, there’s a game where you have to match robots based on the color of their head and their body and the color of their eyes. Now that is an executive functioning skill because you almost need to bring in flexibility of understanding that yes this is a robot but it has different characteristics and I need to match this and so there is matching. But basically any game that you play with your child is building their executive functioning skills. Executive functions begin to develop almost at birth and one the first things that people would talk about as a milestone is when the child finds the way to get the thumb into the mouth and a very regular process. And that is an executive function, it’s purposeful and it takes a while to regulate that. But that development will actually go up through the second decade of life for most of us and the developmental aspects of this starting at birth begin probably with the moto regulation coming out first such as the thumb in the mouth but it also then moves into inhibitory control and then we move into such shifting and mental flexibility and working memory coming on later in the preschool years. One thing I might suggest though is that parents do a lot of very good things and sometimes we do not know everything we do that is good and so understanding that some of the things that you do like grandma’s rule…grandma’s rule is a principle that was developed by David Premack back in the 50s but it is using preferred activities to reinforce non-preferred activities. And we’ve all probably had this. You can have your dessert after you have finished your vegetables. You can go out and play after you’ve done your homework, so you use preferred activities to reinforce non-preferred and I think that these types of things can actually facilitate, parents do this all the time, but doing it strategically and knowing when you are doing it, can actually facilitate. Children all develop in different ways, we do have some broad parameters that we expect to see, but in general the differences are the common occurrence and not the exception. For pre-school children the manifestation of executive function comes at a whole host of activities, you may see it in turn-taking, you go first I go second. You may see in children explaining directions how to play a game, you do this first you do this second, that’s where memory coming into play, you do this third. You can also see it when they get into conflicts so, you have a toy and somebody takes it, how is that handled? Some children will negotiate, some children that’s set shifting trying to strategise how to get what you want at the end and you know maybe, the strategy is, you take and then I want it back later. Or maybe that the child cries. And those are sort of different manifestations of different levels of executive functioning. Stephen Hooper An example of a way that you might promote executive function in just a day to day task, say that you’re going to the grocery store with your child. You can give them little things to do, so to help take the burden off of you. I need to remember to get eggs and milk or a couple of other things, two or three things in mind, that is going to keep the child active in the task and it can be like a game. That when you remember one thing then your child is updating their working memory and crossing off that from the list. Kimberley Cuevas It’s a really timely question to ask whether or not we can do anything to enhance or improve executive function. For the most part, people are down to the point of thinking that simply practice in engaging in executive function skills is one way to improve both the development and performance of executive function skills. So, we might use executive functions on a day to day basis, like if we are going grocery shopping. So, let’s say you’re here at the grocery store, you have your child in the cart with you, and you’re trying to keep in mind those three things you forgot to write down on your list, but that you know you need. So, we have executive function first maintaining in your mind those three items that you need. You’re having to do those despite lots of distraction; your child’s calling your name, you get a phone call. And your ability to balance and to shift and to go from one thing to another, that’s all of our executive function, allowing us to do that somewhat seamlessly. Kimberley Cuevas UTM-EM-053-APR-21 |
| PWA weight | 140 |
| PWA Slug | /examples-of-executive-function-in-children |
| PWA Waiting for Review | True |