Full PreFrontal: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function

Send us Fan Mail Reading comprehension isn’t a checklist skill. It’s an active process shaped by what students know and how they think. With the nation's attention laser focused on promoting literacy outcomes in K-12 education, too often, comprehension is treated as a skill to be mastered through activities such as finding the main idea or making inferences. Rather than viewing it as a one-si...

Send us Fan Mail Children in general, and students to be specific, are incredibly sensitive to the expectations of the adults in their lives; particularly their teachers. A study by Rubie-Davies and colleagues showed that in two sets of 2nd through 7th grade students, in spite of the similar levels of reading achievement at the start of the year, the achievement results at the end of the year mark...

Send us Fan Mail As students get ready to return to school this fall, the post-pandemic norm of plummeted student engagement rises to the top as a deep and wide concern for teachers, parents, families, educational leaders, and policymakers. However, we should be careful about HOW we describe, assess, or remedy engagement. Stakeholders need to be cautious in not letting students’ behavioral engagem...

Send us Fan Mail If an American 10th grader is assigned to read the autobiography "Virat Kohli: Legend of a Great Player," about the world-famous Indian cricketer known as the best limited-overs batsman in history, they might read the pages, but would they truly grasp the meaning of Kohli’s remarkable accomplishments on the global sports platform? Americans who don’t play cricket, let al...

Send us Fan Mail Indian-American author and wellness expert, Deepak Chopra, says, “Find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible.” The big challenge for educators and parents alike is how do developing brains become all that they have the possibility of becoming? Is this simply a mindset or is reaching one’s own full potential a story of building skills with practice? What are sure-fi...

Send us Fan Mail It’s human to crave connections. If there’s a silver bullet that comes closest to protecting kids, it’s the art of making meaningful connections with adults in their lives. This provides children with a sense of closeness and belonging ,which in return, contributes positively to their physical, social, psychological, and emotional health. Effective communication is the key ingredi...

Send us Fan Mail Reading comprehension is unequivocally the foundation of all other learning, not just during the formal years of education, but in creating socially engaged communities and an inclusive world. The ‘Active View of Reading’ framework suggests that complex executive function skills such as goal setting, planning, organizing, and sequencing information critically supports goal complet...

Send us Fan Mail Modern living means living with uncertainty. We are surrounded by progress, yet the things we are unsure of keeps growing, needing us to skillfully cope; hence, making hard decisions without all the answers requires skill and courage. On the other hand, the world measures certainty as the mark of expertise and celebrates those who exude the attitude of invincibility through a firm...

Send us Fan Mail The start of the New Year always rings in new possibilities. However, setting and achieving goals for yourself and by yourself is harder than it seems. There are a multitude of obstacles including questions like knowing which tasks and ambitions to prioritize, where exactly to start, and how best to carry on when facing roadblocks and distractions. One truth remains though, we are...

Send us Fan Mail How would you feel if during your trip to Agra, India, someone offers to sell you the Taj Mahal (one of the greatest wonders of the world)? In its absurd glory you might question the offer as you read this, but not everyone did. One of the greatest con artists from India, Natwarlal aka Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, not only sold the Taj Mahal to unsuspecting foreign tourists, but al...

Send us Fan Mail 200 episodes! The Full PreFrontal Podcast has reached a significant milestone, and what does that mean to us? We’re “in it for the long haul!” We find inspiration from Japanese artist, On Kawara, known for his work that illustrates the beauty, structure, and discipline in doing something over a long period of time with persistence and care. A milestone often not only marks the sta...

Send us Fan Mail During the 2007 season of America’s Next Top Model , contestant Heather Kuzmich introduced American viewers to her diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and the  challenges that go along with it. Having to live in a house with twelve strangers while navigating the social politics of housemates who were also her competitors proved to be quite a bit of challenge for Kuzmich and yet...

Send us Fan Mail If a boy has an odd affect, you might think he’s autistic. But if a girl has an odd affect, you’ll think she’s a drama queen!…How does autism present itself? And what if it presents in a way you might not expect? The ordeal of connecting, communicating, and belonging to a neurotypical world while being neurodiverse is the same as navigating the right-handed world while being left-...

Send us Fan Mail The process of educating children and growing as an educator in return requires everyone to acknowledge the bidirectionality that is inherent to teaching and learning. The context and culture that invests in both the academic growth of a child and also in the process that honors the input from its learning community brings itself into a new realm of possibilities. By carefully cre...

Send us Fan Mail Culture in general plays an important role in human development and particularly childhood is shaped by culture. Not so long ago raising children was considered rather noisy, dirty, tedious and anything but pleasant. However, those living in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies that make up about 12% of the world’s population have perpetuated o...

Send us Fan Mail Culture encourages girls and women to exhibit both traditional “feminine” qualities, such as being empathic, good with relationships, nice, obedient, good mothers, and home-organizers, as well as traditional “masculine” qualities, such as being assertive, competitive, academically driven, and career-focused. However, when girls display disruptive, hyperactive, impulsive, or disorg...

Send us Fan Mail Why is it that our resolve to lose weight, give up eating desserts, and start a new exercise regimen is bound to fail? Because we all have bought into to the conventional wisdom that follow-through with a new decision is simply a matter of conscious choice and decision and ultimately this belief ends up leading us astray. Even though it’s a common human experience to want to overc...

Send us Fan Mail Research shows that young children with stronger Executive Function skills present themselves far differently than their peers and their behaviors and actions stand out a bit more. These children are more involved in their preschool classrooms, they interact more freely with their learning environment, and it’s less likely that they get put into “time out”. From there on, these st...

Send us Fan Mail Raising children, which was always hard, has become harder; not because of the work that goes into changing diapers, preparing meals, taking kids to soccer or piano, or all the laundry that one has to do; but because not everyone is good with children. On top of that, in modern times and in modern living, parents’ abilities to control what children have access to has fundamentally...

Send us Fan Mail There is no impulse more natural than the desire to protect ourselves and our loved ones from pain. When we experience social-emotional pain, we activate the same instincts as a mama bear who jumps to protect her cub as an effort to dial down emotions of distress. An unhealthy emotional pain management can lead to actively taking steps to inflict pain on others through the acts of...

Send us Fan Mail Students with underdeveloped Executive Function skills often present themselves as highly impulsive or distracted, reactive rather than reflective, forgetful of their goals, lacking persistence or as those who dislike effortful tasks. Such behaviors often are alarming as they sabotage personal success and social cooperation. However, a myriad of traumatic exposures in childhood in...

Send us Fan Mail In a society where its members believe that one color or race is superior to another, its members who belong to the racial minority experience poor treatment based on these beliefs causing them social-emotional trauma. These racialized experiences get further accentuated by false narratives perpetuated by the society unbeknownst to its members which leads to an artificial gap that...

Send us Fan Mail The excitement of a new year also brings new challenges to overcome, especially as we continue to face educational, health, safety and well-being issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we gear up, how should we adjust our educational approach so that we can achieve our goals with our schools and communities? How can we keep students motivated and engaged to continue learning,...

Send us Fan Mail It is said that a human body that has been traumatized or overwhelmed by stress can feel helpless, reactive, angry, impulsive, raging, numb and leaning towards avoidance. AND the same is true for schools! Institutions, public or private, that serve the needs of children, learners and families from distressed communities can also feel helpless and drained with an ongoing crisis or...

Send us Fan Mail The violence in the United States this past month has brought up raw emotions in all of us.  The killing of Asian seniors as they were worshipping in their church, African-American elders as they went about their everyday tasks such as shopping for groceries, and the violent deaths of 19 small children with their two teachers who came to their elementary classrooms for a day of le...