Plenary III
Emotion Regulation, Children’s Brains, and Learning
There is new research available regarding children’s brains and central nervous systems. This information can directly help parents and early childhood educators understand children’s behavior and learning approaches. In this session, Adele Diamond discusses the “executive functions” of the brain—those functions that govern three core abilities: 1) the ability to resist the urge to be distracted; 2) the ability to hold information in one’s mind while mentally working with or updating it; and 3) the ability to decisively shift one’s perspective or the focus of one’s attention. Dr. Diamond explains why these executive function skills are important for school readiness and hypothesizes that improving young children’s executive function skills will improve their long-term acquisition of academic skills. Also in this session, Mary K. Rothbart discusses children’s temperaments—individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation that are influenced over time by heredity, maturation, and experience. She explains that temperaments are reactive dispositions that can be influenced by children’s environments. Dr. Rothbart discusses three broad dimensions of temperament in childhood—extraversion, negative affectivity, and effortful control—and highlights research demonstrating how effortful control (the ability to suppress a dominant response to perform a subdominant response, such as the ability to wait for candy) is linked to executive attention. She also discusses research demonstrating that through attention training it is possible to improve young children’s executive attention and intelligence test scores (Rueda, et al, 2005).