Emotion is essential for learning, but brain evidence shows how not all emotional engagement is equivalent. New research by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and the research team at the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning, and Education finds that adolescents' dispositions toward emotionally engaged "transcendent…

This study examines parents' perspectives of the participation patterns (frequency, involvement, and parental desire for change) in their adolescent children's everyday functioning with and without executive function deficit profiles. Parents of 81 adolescents (10-14) years) with executive function deficits (n = 41) and a matched group of parents…

For students with significant behavior problems, difficulties with executive function (EF) and associated self-regulation are not uncommon, and middle school is a crucial period when students are at greater risk for escalating behaviors that have long-term impacts (e.g., school dropout, incarceration; Kauffman & Landrum, 2018). Therefore, in…

Cultural background can influence cognition, including executive functions (EFs), abilities that encompass skills responsible for self-regulation of thoughts and behavior. The seminal unity and diversity model of EFs proposes the existence, in adulthood, of at least three correlated but separable EF latent (shared variance in more than one…

"Marvel" at the neuroscientific reasons why smart teens make dumb decisions! "Behold" the mind-controlling power of executive function! "Thrill" to a vision of a better school for the teenage brain! Whether you're a parent interacting with one adolescent or a teacher interacting with many, you know teens can be hard…

This study examined relations between intentional self-regulation (ISR) and executive functions (EFs) among 84 Icelandic youth in Grade 6 (mean age 11.7 years; 51% girls) and their contributions to healthy and problematic outcomes a year later. ISR was indicated by the Selection, Optimization and Compensation model (SOC) and Self-Regulated…

The present study examined longitudinal associations between preschoolers' executive function (EF) and adult educational attainment, impulse control, and general health directly and through its cascading effects on childhood and adolescent EF using a large, national, and prospective longitudinal sample of participants. Data were drawn from the…

Adolescence is a period of rapid cognitive change, including an initial increase in speed of cognitive processing and a more gradual increase in efficiency of cognitive processing. This study examined how neurophysiological changes associated with adolescent development can inform the design of game-based executive function (EF) training. Two…

Younger members of the House and Ball Community (HBC) have created an emerging social scene called "Kiki" that has shared elements with the HBC. Given the growing popularity of the Kiki scene in urban communities with large numbers of Black gay, bisexual, and transgender (GBT) adolescents and emerging adults, it is important to…

New advances in neurobiology are revealing that brain development and the learning it enables are directly dependent on social-emotional experience. Growing bodies of research reveal the importance of socially triggered epigenetic contributions to brain development and brain network configuration, with implications for social-emotional…

Growing up in a high family risk (HFR) environment is accompanied by difficulties in executive functions (EFs) and interpersonal skills (IS) that may persist into adulthood. Because preadolescence is a critical period, this study will assess a multicomponent mediational intervention program, to determine the possibility of improving these skills.…

The purpose of this article is to familiarize teachers with the concept of executive functioning and to provide them with a collection of strategies that they can use to help support middle and high school students with planning, organization, task-initiation, and impulse control.

Updating information in working memory (WM) is a critical executive function responsible both for continuously replacing outdated information with new relevant data and to suppress or inhibit content that is no longer relevant according to task demands. The goal of the present research is twofold: First, we aimed to study updating development in…

Adolescence is the period between childhood and adulthood and the most important stage of a human being. Adolescence is a period of stress and storm. Students cannot adjust with their new-fangled role in life. They can have Emotional, Mental, Behavioural, and Adjustment problems known as "disorders". Behavioural patterns that appear in…

To explore the influence of circadian rhythms on executive function during early adolescence, we administered a battery of executive function measures (including a Go-Nogo task, the Iowa Gambling Task, a Self-ordered Pointing task, and an Intra/Extradimensional Shift task) to Morning-preference and Evening-preference participants (N = 80) between…