Interventions to improve executive functions in children are often successful.

In a recent issue of Science (19 August 2011; vol. 333; 959-964)  Adele Diamond and Kathleen Lee provide an excellewnt  overview of the status of training of executive functions in children from 4-12 years old. There is no doubt that effective executive functions are critical for successful living. We would not be able to learn effectively and to adapt to our environment without being able to;  inhiit impulses, delay gratificaton, be disciplined and controlled, play with ideas,  plan future behjavior, evaluate ones own performance. Executive functions are part of what is necessary to act intelligently. The development of executive functions in many children is incomplete putting them at risk for normal development including sussess in schoool.

Diamond has developed a program of research in which she showed that preschool children can be trained to acquire executive functions skills and that those skills can be maintained over time (see a synopsis of her reseaechon this website).

In the Science review paper points out that many types of activities can be used to improve children’s executive functions including actiities that include computerized training, noncomputerized games, aerobics, martial arts, yoga. While many different types of actiivities can be useful they all require repeated practice and progressively increase the challenge to executive functions. Diamond also points out that the children who benefit from executieve funcions training are those who start with worse executive functions (which is not a surprise).  The most important take away message is that executive functions can be trained in the classroom and not just in the home.