GUEST AUTHORS
Research-Based Curriculum Analysis: Executive Functioning Instruction at Gaynor Executive Functions Are Embedded in the Curriculum at Stephen Gaynor School Written by Geena Kuriakose, Ph.D., Brooklyn Learning Center; and Amy Margolis, Ph.D., Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Brooklyn Learning Center
Understanding a child’s cognitive processing, and specifically executive functioning, is critical to assessing and treating dyslexia, learning, and attention disorders. Early in 2020, before schools were closed for social distancing, we developed a project with Head of School Dr. Scott Gaynor and Assistant Head of School Jill Thompson who, recognizing the importance of such training for their students, enlisted us to help them identify where executive functioning training was occurring in school and how they could enhance their program. What are Executive Functions? According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), executive functions encompass “the capacity to plan, organize, and monitor the execution of behaviors that are strategically directed in a goal-oriented manner.” One researcher, Adele Diamond, describes executive functioning in a daily-activity-friendly manner such as: taking the time to think before acting, mentally playing with ideas, thinking ‘outside the box’, and quickly and flexibly adapting to changed circumstances.1
Many of these executive functions can be detected in children as young as age two, as long as the task is appropriate for the child’s age. Developmental studies show that as children get older, these abilities develop in parallel with the development of circuits in the brain that support such skills.2 How Are Executive Functions Trained at Gaynor? We started by identifying a list of executive functions that students need to use throughout a typical school day, and we set out to observe how teachers supported students in these processes. We spent eight full days in January 2020 visiting classrooms from the Early Childhood program to the Blue Cluster, and observing how teachers engaged students and taught content, as well as, executive functions as part of a student’s everyday experience. Below are illustrative examples of the executive function-efficient curriculum at Gaynor: Inhibitor Control – “Put the brakes on”: Inhibitory control is the ability to inhibit automatic responses in favor of novel responses. For example, it is being able to say “go” when you see a red light. During a reading lesson in an early childhood classroom, a teacher provided a cue (i.e., saying “put the brakes on”) to help her student take the time to think before responding to a question about what sound a letter made, since these sounds change depending on the surrounding letters. For example, the “a” sound changes when reading “rat” versus “rate.” This helped the student practice inhibitory control — within the context of reading. Practicing the skill in context is critical for the student to be able to generalize the skill, e.g. to put the brakes on while reading. The student is not just learning to stop and think, but learning to stop and think while reading.
1.Diamond, Adele. “Executive Functions.” Annual Review of Psychology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2013, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4084861/. 2.Best, J. R., & Miller, P. H. (2010). A developmental perspective on executive function. Child development, 81(6), 1641–1660. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01499.x
10 GAYNOR GAZETTE
