Executive skills and metacognition Flashcards
Define executive functions
Executive functions refer to a family of top-down mental processes needed when you have to concentrate and pay attention
(Diamond, 2013)
Executive function, also called cognitive control, refers to the deliberate, top-down neurocognitive processes involved in the conscious, goal-directed control of thought, action and emotion
(Zelazo & Carlson, 2012)
Give an example of a case study
Adam is 9 years old. Between the ages of 2 months to three years Adam witnessed severe domestic violence which meant that his father had to go to prison.
When Adam started school he was frequently angry and aggressive. He struggled with friendships and would ‘lash out’ at his classmates and his Mum. Adam hated getting things wrong and often didn’t want to do his work.
After several years of supporting Adam to understand his emotions, he appears highly motivated to learn, but his literacy and numeracy skills are at the level of a five year old
What are executive skills?
- Response inhibition
- Working memory
- Emotional control
- Sustained attention
- Task initiation
- Planning/prioritising
- Organisation
- Time Management
- Goal directed persistence
- Flexibility
- Metacognition
- Response inhibition
- Working memory
- Emotional control
- Sustained attention
- Task initiation
- Planning/prioritising
- Organisation
- Time Management
- Goal directed persistence
- Flexibility
- Metacognition
When do executive skills develop?
- 6-12 months
- Response inhibition, working memory, emotional control, attention
- 12-24 months
- Planning, flexibility
- Preschool – primary school (and beyond)
- Task initiation, organisation, time management, goal-directed persistence
What are executive skills -thinking?
- Working memory
- Planning / prioritisation
- Organisation
- Time management
- Metacognition
what are executive skills- doing?
- Response inhibition
- Emotional control
- Sustained attention
- Task initiation
- Goal-directed persistence
- Flexibility
What is a dynamic assessment?
an approach which seeks to identify the skills an individual possesses as well as their learning potential. It emphasises the learning process not just the ‘product’. Asking the child what do you need to learn better
Adam’s dynamic assessment
• What did Adam struggle with?
• Some of the shapes looked like things from his computer games
• He kept confusing the word diagonal for divergent (from a computer game)
• He really wanted to get it done quickly
What Executive skill helps us understand this?
Adam’s dynamic assessment
• What did Adam struggle with?
• He often wanted to talk about his computer games
• He told stories about the different shapes he saw
• He talked about his holidays
What Executive skill helps us understand this? Response inhibition helped him. Unable to sustain attention, these skills need to be developed for him to improve his literacy level at school
• What did Adam struggle with?
• He seemed to just draw parts of the model at random
• He couldn’t really tell me what he was going to do and why- No language to structure thinking
what is the executive skill - response inhibition
• The capacity to think before you act – resisting the urge to say or do something so that you have time to evaluate a situation and how different behaviours might impact on it
What is the executive skill- sustained attention
• The capacity to keep paying attention to something even if there are distractions, you’re tired or bored.
What is the executive skill- planning/prioritisation?
• The ability to create a plan to reach a goal or complete a task. This also means making decisions about what is important to focus on and what isn’t
What can we do to develop executive skills?
- Teach them! Teachers don’t appreciate that these skills need to be explicitly taught
- Consider a child’s developmental level
- Move from the external to the internal
- Change the environment, the task and how you interact with a child
- Use children’s innate drive for mastery and control- cognitive and emotional state, children’s drive for autonomy
- Modify tasks to match a child’s capacity to exert effort
- Use incentives
- Provide just enough support for success
- Keep support in place until a child achieves mastery
- When it’s time to stop supports, supervision or incentives, fade them gradually
Why should we look outside the child?
[Executive functions] suffer first, and most, if you are stressed, lonely, sleep deprived or not physically fit.
If we want school children…to have better attention and concentration, be better able to reason and problem solve, we cannot ignore stresses in their lives. This is imperative, if their life is not good then their executive skills will not develop.
(Diamond, 2013)
What is metacognition?
Metacognition is thinking about thinking, or thinking about learning more explicitly.
To think ‘metacognitively’ is to have an awareness of understanding of ones own though processes, cognitive skills and limitations
metacognitive knowledge?
Declarative knowledge “What” Knowing what memory strategy to use Procedural knowledge “How” Knowing how that memory strategy can be used Conditional knowledge “When” Knowing when it is best to use that memory strategy
self regulation?
Planning
Pre-task
Working out how a task might be approached before starting
Monitoring
On-task
Awareness of progress in a task and whether approaches are useful
Evaluation
Post-task
Reviewing outcomes, deciding what went well & how to improve
