Helping Students Develop Executive Function Skills

Simple classroom strategies can assist students with deficits in executive function skills like time management and active listening.

Executive function is an umbrella term in neuroscience to describe the neurological processes involving mental control and self-regulation. Executive functions control and regulate cognitive and social behaviors like controlling impulses, paying attention, remembering information, planning and organizing time and materials, and responding appropriately to social situations and stressful situations.

Experts believe executive function is regulated by the frontal lobe of the brain—the prefrontal cortex. Because humans are born with brains that are not fully…