Can your child sit still and do their homework without constant reminders to stay on task? If not, then maybe they’d benefit from strengthening their Executive Functioning Skills.

Executive Functioning Skills (EFS) are an advanced set of tools that the brain uses to keep on task, especially when the work is difficult or tedious. There are three key categories of skills: mental flexibility (helps you change focus), self-control (regulates your emotions) and working memory (oversees your active memory). These skills usually fully mature by early adulthood, but they start to develop from early infancy onwards.

You may have heard of the ‘Marshmallow Experiment’ created in the 1960s by American Psychologist  Walter Mischel. In Mischel's experiment, pre-school children were given a single marshmallow and told by an adult that, if they waited for their return before eating it, they would receive another one. However, if they ate the first marshmallow while the adult was out of the room, they would not receive a second treat. The adult then left the room, returning after a little while to see if the child had eaten the marshmallow or not. The purpose of the test was to see how well children could stay focused for short periods of time.

It was clear that strong Executive Functioning Skills have a huge impact on a child’s development, right through to adulthood.

Mischel and his colleagues later reviewed these results to how these children went on to fare later in life. The results were fascinating. Those children who did not eat the first marshmallow, and waited for the adult to return to the room, later showed significantly higher levels of academic achievement and career advancement when compared to those who gave in to temptation. The children who remembered there was a bigger reward available if they controlled the urge to eat the first marshmallow clearly had an advantage over those who were interested in immediate gratification.

It was clear that strong Executive Functioning Skills have a huge impact on a child’s development right through to adulthood. However, staying focused requires a lot of cognitive capacity.  For this reason, EFS are often seen as the highest of brain functions, as they affect flexibility, memory, and emotional control, as well as response inhibition, time management, sustained attention, and goal-directed persistence.

The biggest challenge? Remembering what matters

To have strong Executive Functioning Skills you need a good Working Memory. Memory is a complex area of brain functionality that works in a number of ways. We call these: long-term, procedural, autobiographical, short-term, and working memory. You use your Working Memory when you hold and manipulate information simultaneously. Put more simply, it is a form of active memory where we 'think and do' at the same time.

Examples of Working Memory in everyday life include:

●  Remembering your point in a complex debate
●  Reading, comprehending and doing (for example, following a recipe)
●  Mental arithmetic
●  Remembering instructions
●  Keeping track of time

Working Memory information does not need to be retained long term. Once the task is done the information is no longer needed and can be forgotten. However, in the moment we are carrying out a task it is very important in helping us focus both on the task itself and how we complete it effectively.

For this reason, Working Memory is a critical part of Executive Functionality. However, Working Memory can be weak because our capacity is limited. We may only hold very few instructions and, after that, we forget. Or we are not able to keep the information in our Working Memory for any length of time because we get distracted easily. So building someone’s Working Memory helps build their Executive Functioning Skills. If your child does struggle with staying on task when doing their homework or other activities, therefore, this may be exactly the area they need to work on.

How does Working Memory work, and how can it be strengthened?

Working Memory relies on processing sensory input through various temporary memory stores into the central executive regions of our brains, which is the hub for all EFS, and the master controller of all its aspects. Visual input from our eyes is held for just a few seconds in our visuospatial sketch pad, and sensory information from our ears is held for an even shorter period in our phonological loop, before feeding into a third area called the Episodic Buffer. From there, it is finally calibrated into the central executive region that handles control of the task.

Working Memory develops alongside Executive Functioning Skills. Its biggest grow spurt is from 5 to 16 years of age. It continues to increase, albeit at a slower pace, until the age of 29 when it then starts to drop. You can see the development of Working Memory in how well people of different ages remember information, from complex instructions like directions or recipes to simpler things like shopping lists or telephone numbers. Children in preschool may remember a list of two instructions or items, teenagers around 5, and adults around 6 or 7.

Working Memory skills are something that we need to build throughout our lives, and that we can all benefit from. There are a number of ways to do this. Essentially, in any Working Memory training, the key objective is to strengthen the initial memory centres mentioned above. For example, we can strengthen the visuospatial sketch pad with lots of visual tasks to train our memory to hold more images for longer periods of time in our mind's eye. Likewise, our phonological loop can be strengthened by exposing it to more auditory information. This exposure to visual and auditory information can then be gradually extended at regular intervals to stretch the Working Memory and improve EFS.

While manual games and techniques can be used to build Working Memory, it takes a significantly long time to build memory by a single increase. On average, it takes almost a year to improve Working Memory processing manually. However, there are evidence-based solutions, such as Cogmed Working Memory Training, that may cut this time down to around eight weeks.

Any type of Working Memory training needs to work in conjunction with natural development, which is why children with weak EFS need to revisit each year to be in line with their peer group/ chronological age. Those over 29 years of age may also need to undertake regular training to make up for their natural decline. Executive Functioning Skills need lifelong management, but have powerful benefits on many areas of our lives. The more we can build on the individual elements involved, the more success we have of being on task, and completing those tasks successfully.

If you want to know if  your child would  pass the ' Marshmallow test,' check their Working Memory here with this free questionnaire.

In the next blog, I will be talking about  how to improve Emotional Regulation, another of the Executive Functioning Skills.

 If you think we can help you, your child, please get in touch. We are always happy to take the time to listen to your needs or concerns.The best way to take the first step is to book a phone consultation so we can talk through your needs. Let’s talk.  

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