Rationale
​"Emotional intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understandings of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions." J. Freedman
Executive Functioning Skills in Elementary Students​
When working with students with disabilities, particularly students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, it is critical to understand and analyze why they behave the way that they do in order to best serve their needs and help them to thrive within the classroom. Many negative behaviors displayed by students can be attributed to a lack of executive functioning and self-regulation skills. Executive functioning skills include response inhibition, working memory, emotional control, sustained attention, task initiation, planning, organization, time management, goal-orientation, flexibility, and meta-cognition (Dawson & Guare, 2010). Self-regulation abilities are comprised of conscientiousness, emotion-, mood-, and affect-regulation, delay of gratification, effortful control, reactive and impulse control, and willpower (Nigg, 2016). While they have different, but similar, definitions, executive functioning skills are used to employ self-regulation skills, and are thus referred to interchangeably within the psychiatric and educational community (Nigg, 2016). By understanding the purpose of executive functioning, the skills involved, and instructional strategies to teach these skills, educators can help improve the overall academic and social well-being of their students.
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References:
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Australian Government Department of Education and Training. (2016). Fact Sheet - Executive Functioning. Retrieved from Positive Partnerships:
http://www.positivepartnerships.com.au/en/fact-sheet/executive-functioning
Dawson, P., & Guare, R. (2010). Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention. New York: The
Guilford Press.
de Vries, M., Prins, P. J., Schmand, B. A., & Geurts, H. M. (2015). Working memory and cognitive flexibility-training for children with autism
spectrum disorder: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 566-576.
Garcia Winner, M., Tarshis, N., Zweber Palmer, K., & Hendrix, R. (2016). We Thinkers! GPS: Group Collaboration, Play, Problem Solving. Santa
Clara: Think Social Publishing.
Holley, S. R., Ewing, S. T., Stiver, J. T., & Block, L. (2015). The Relationship Between Emotion and Regulation, Executive Functioning, and
Aggressive Behaviors. Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
Mann, T. L. (2017). Fostering Emotional Regulation in the Service of Executive Functioning. National Association for the Education of Young
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Nigg, J. T. (2016). Annual Research Review: On the Relations Among Self-Regulation, Self-Control, Executive Functioning, Effortful Control,
Cognitive Control, Impulsivity, Risk-Taking, and Inhibition for Developmental Psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and
Psychiatry, 361-383.
Rappaport, N., & Minahan, J. (2012). Cracking the Behavior Code. Educational Leadership, 18-25.
Smith, S. W., Cumming, M. M., Merril, K. L., Pitts, D. L., & Duanic, A. P. (2015). Teaching Self-Regulation Skills to Students with Behavior
Problems: Essential Instructional Components. Beyond Behavior, 4-13.
Stichter, J. P., Christ, S. E., Herzog, M. J., O'Donnel, R. M., & O'Connor, K. V. (2016). Exploring the Role of Executive Functioning Measures for
Social Competence Research. Hammill Institute on Disabilities, 243-254.
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