– Is your preschooler ready for the transition into a formal school setting? Many factors can help determine a child’s success in this decisive step, but the most important of all is called “executive function.” Executive function encompasses the self-regulatory brain abilities that children need to manage attention, thought, emotion, and behavior in their pursuit of goals. Executive function skills are crucial for a child to retain information, think creatively, resist distraction, and thereby be successful at school.

– Research has shown that children with better executive function abilities will learn more from an equal amount of information and will get along better with their peers and adults. Low-income children are always at a greater risk of school failure, but those of them with a better developed executive function are more resilient and more able to meet academic standards despite their disadvantaged background. Since no child is born with given and fixed executive function skills, every child has the potential to develop and improve them.

Image: Kigahaus Wiedikon Kindergarten / WikimediaCommons

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