Essay On Executive Function

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Executive functions play an important role in ensuring that a child will enjoy success at school. In fact, they are believed to be more important for school readiness than IQ or ability in reading and maths when entering school.(Blair and Razza, 2007) EFs depend on the prefrontal cortex and the neural regions with which it is connected. The pre frontal cortex and EFs will suffer if a child is sad, lonely or not physically fit.
A Diamond believes that Executive Function skills are made up of three main interrelated core skills. Inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility. These form the foundation of higher order skills such as reasoning, problem solving and planning. The lack of these skills can affect a child ability to plan and prioritise for example putting on socks before shoes, inhibition/impulse control for example being able to raise a hand and wait rather that blurting out an answer,
Shift The ability to move freely from one situation to another and to think flexibly in order to respond appropriately to the situation.
Emotional control – the ability to control emotions for example the ability to not over react when dealing with criticism.
Working memory – this is the ability to hold information in the mind whilst mentally working with it
Resist distractions – the ability to listen to the …show more content…

However, others do argue that more work needs to be done in order to show a causal link between executive function and achievement.(Jacob and Parkinson, 2015) A child with strong executive function skills will find it easier to make and keep friends since they will be less likely to respond impulsively, they will be able to resist urges, take turns and follow rules when playing games. Since EFs play such a crucial

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