Hello everyone and welcome back to What in the
World is Dyscalculia? This podcast is all about
the math -related specific learning disorder,
dyscalculia, and I'm your host, Dr. Honora Wall.
The podcast is sponsored by Educalc Learning,
and you can learn more about dyscalculia and
how we can help support students and adults and
teachers at EducalcLearning .com. You can also
visit the Dyscalculia Training and Research
Institute. That website is thedtri .org. And
that's where you can find information on how
we support school districts, larger area education
agencies, or state departments of education through
our nonprofit services. Okay, so today in the
podcast, we're going to focus on something adjacent.
to dyscalculia, we're going to talk about executive
function. You might be wondering, why are we
talking about executive function in a podcast
about dyscalculia? Well, there's a lot of crossover,
sometimes even complete comorbidity. And what
I mean by that is we can see students with dyscalculia
who sometimes struggle with executive function
issues. We can also see people who have executive
function issues who seem to have dyscalculia
because their math struggles are so severe and
sometimes we get a neuropsych evaluation that
shows comorbidity a person definitely has both
according to that full battery of tests. So we're
going to talk about executive function because
the more we know the more we can support our
students and in some cases our children or ourselves.
So I'm going to bring you some information that
came from a great research article published
in 2015 by Diamond and Ling, if you want to look
it up. It was published in Developmental Cognitive
Neuroscience, which is a journal that pretty
clearly focuses a lot on neuroscience. So that's
where this lens comes from. Neuroscience is the
field that first started researching dyscalculia
in the 1930s. Then it really bled over into psychology
and now is picking up more steam in educational
research. Same trajectory as dyslexia, but dyslexia
got really popular really fast, whereas we are
still picking up and gaining traction. So this
article was about executive function and it was
a meta study which means the authors looked at
a whole bunch of published research and summarized
and disseminated their findings. In this article,
there were 84 different studies included. So
the researchers, Diamond and Ling, went through
all 84 studies, gathered all the information
they could, and put together some of the sort
of best practices, if you will, and some of the
misconceptions around executive function. So
here are the main things we need to know about
executive function before we get started. What
is it? It's a big trending keyword these days
executive function and there's all sorts of people
claiming they can help increase executive function
skills and that something as teachers were told
to work on in the classroom to help our students
with and you know it's not not all that easy
and as teachers we certainly have plenty enough
on our plates already so I'm always wary of anything
else new that teachers are supposed to be doing
because we've got plenty going on luckily a lot
of the things that help are going to be things
that you're probably already doing we just want
to tweak the way you're applying these skills
a little bit or give you some ideas of what to
put in the classroom and also help you manage
the expectation of what your help is going to
lead to for your students. So here's what executive
function is. It lives in your prefrontal cortex,
kind of the forehead -ish part of the brain.
It is not fully developed. for anyone until we're
in our mid -twenties some people are even saying
early thirties so it's something that we we build
and develop over time and executive function
has three components I'm getting all of this
right from the article, so you can go to that
original source and see exactly what I'm saying
and delve more into what the authors had to say.
But the three parts for executive function, inhibitory
control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility.
Those are the three components of executive function.
So what in the world do they mean? Inhibitory
control, basically that's our ability to resist
distractions. I wish I had a little more skill
in that area. So you're inhibiting reacting to
stimuli, basically. And if you can control this
area of your life, then you're really good at
saying, oh, this is a great TV show, but right
now I'm finishing the dishes. I'm going to get
this done before I move on to that other activity.
and if you have poor inhibitory control then
you're probably washing the dishes and watching
the TV show and folding the laundry and only
half of any of those things are getting done
before you decide you have a great creative idea
and you want to go for a walk. So you can clearly
see how inhibitory control is a part of ADHD
as well. The second part of Executive function
is working memory, which is key to most anything
we do. And students with dyscalculia could have
high, medium, or low scores on working memory
in their neuropsych evaluation. So if you're
reading one of those evaluations, you want to
look at the percentile rank for working memory
and see where the student lands. As in anything
in life, stronger working memory is going to
make your life easier. And working memory is
not just our short -term memory, that quick information
that comes in and we hold it for a little bit
before we decide what moves into long -term memory.
Working memory is a little more involved than
that. It's the information that we're holding
and also our ability to manipulate that information
while we're holding it. So let's say I'm cooking
a new recipe and I'm reading the ingredients
list and I'm holding in my head in the short
-term memory I need paprika, I need salt, I need
pepper, I need garlic, and my working memory
is also thinking about what's in my cupboard.
Do I have any paprika? did i pick up pepper the
last time i got it at the store can i get those
things out and put them on the counter have i
defrosted the chicken do i need to make this
dish tomorrow night because the next ingredient
is apricot jelly and i'm going through a mental
scan of the fridge and i don't think i have any
of that so i'm manipulating my plan i'm thinking
about where i might have some apricot jelly or
a different substitution that would allow me
to make the recipe but not exactly with the same
ingredients but something similar so i'm manipulating
all of that information while i'm holding it
in my mind i might be doing that while i'm walking
around the kitchen or getting out the pan i'm
going to bake in so that's where it's involved
in memory i'm not constantly reading the ingredients
while i'm looking in the cupboard or while i'm
looking in the fridge holding it in that working
memory So the manipulation, the thinking about
what's in your working memory is an important
piece. The third component, cognitive flexibility.
Can we adjust our thinking based on the demands
of the situation? Are we flexible or are we more
rigid in our thinking? Something should be done
this way so it has to be done that way and if
not we have a problem. That's pretty rigid. Compare
that to, well, something needs to happen this
way. I don't have all of those things. I can
do something slightly different, or I can get
to my goal in a different way, or I can pause
for a minute, think of some other options. That's
flexible. So cognitive flexibility being able
to adjust to the situation. And you can see how
that's important to a math class because one
of the things we want students to have is the
flexibility to look at a math problem and think
of all the different ways they could approach
that problem. How might they solve it? What skills
do they need? What steps do they need to follow?
Is there a formula? Is there prior knowledge
involved? Can they? estimate what the answer
might be and therefore check their work as they're
going through. All of that flexibility is a big
part of mathematical thinking. Alright, so when
we put the three together, inhibitory control,
strong working memory, cognitive flexibility,
then this leads us to our executive function
skills, reasoning, problem solving, and planning,
which you can Clearly see, if you are strong
at reasoning, problem solving, and planning,
your life is going to go much more smoothly in
general from birth to end than it would for a
person who struggles in those areas. A lot of
our students struggle with executive function
skills, and it shows up in that lack of planning,
a lack of follow through, that distraction, not
quite getting things done. in a timely fashion,
the way it needs to be done, finishing the homework,
remembering you even had homework, actually putting
the finished homework into a book bag, getting
it out and giving it back to the teacher. That's
where we usually focus on executive function
in the classroom. So then, now that we know what
it is, what do we do about it? And again, because
it's trending, How do we look at some of the
popular models and programs and services and
choose something that's actually effective? So
here's what the researchers Diamond and Ling
summarized in the article from the 84 studies
they looked at. And I'm going to give you the
highlights, the key points, kind of a broad overview.
and you can go to Google Scholar or anywhere
else where you can find scholarly research and
dive deep into the article if you'd like to know
more. Okay, so here are the highlights. Number
one, executive function can be improved. We can
increase a person's executive function skills
and their ability to reason problem -solving
and plan. However, we don't really know how much
improvement we can expect for any given student
for any given program and we don't know how long
those improvements are going to last. This is
not something that we go through short intervention
and suddenly we come out the other side and our
executive function skills are perfect for the
rest of our lives. That's not what happens. The
amount of improvement depends on a lot of different
factors. They talk about a few in the research
article itself, but that part is pretty complex.
And the ability to maintain progress. That can
depend on quite a few factors, but the biggest
one it comes down to is continued practice of
those skills. So again, it's not that... fourth
grade we do a great program about improving executive
function or in seventh grade we have that one
teacher who's really that's what they're doing
in their weekly executive function boot camp
and now everything is fixed no no no this is
long -term work and continued practice very much
the same way as any kind of physical exercise
that you do If you're working out regularly,
you're going to have some great health benefits.
And most of those will continue. You'll stay
in pretty good shape. If you suddenly stop your
physical activity, guess what's also going to
stop? Your improvement in your physical abilities.
And then over time, it's going to erode. Your
physical health can decline. So if you want to
maintain good physical health, you need to maintain
some sort of physical activity. And if you want
to maintain good executive function skills, you
need to maintain the program. Of course, that's
going to be really difficult if one of your issues
is consistency, which is very common among people
who struggle with executive function or have
ADD, ADHD, consistency. can just be a nightmare
problem. So we can make improvements. It's not
going to be a be all end all cure and it's not
a one time intervention and then we're done.
Number two, wide transfer or far transfer does
not really occur even under the best executive
function improvement programs. And what does
that mean? That means that if I am practicing
improving my executive function in one area,
let's say writing down homework every day in
the planner, my intervention piece is going to
be the teachers coming over at the end of the
day walking around the desks, stopping at mine
and saying, okay, Honora, we need to write this
homework down. I'm going to stand here with you
while you get it. It's right there on the board.
Can you see from here? All right, the first one
is that math. Write it down. Great. You've also
got some reading. Let's get that in there. Great.
And you've got that history project. Now that's
due Friday. I would do at least three pages of
that today so that you're ready for the Friday.
Okay, great. And then the teacher moves on. We
do that over time. Hopefully the intervention
is such and it's working and helping that the
teacher walking over to my desk triggers me to
start writing what's on the board or to ask questions
about what's on the board Hopefully after a period
of time, which would be different for every person
The teacher comes around to my desk. I've already
got it written down. That's great. I'm showing
improvement in that particular executive function
piece of writing down my information so I can
plan my homework for the afternoon or my project
for this week. That skill does not automatically
transfer to me actually doing the homework or
to me turning the homework in. It does not transfer
to me actually completing the history project
or completing it by Friday or turning it in.
So we can have improvement, but it doesn't automatically
transfer to everything else. We're going to have
to work on those pieces as well. For teachers,
a lot of that can be fixed if you have students
work on projects in class or in school time.
So we are not even giving them the opportunity
to forget when they get home. They already got
it done and they can work on longer projects
the last 15 or 20 minutes of class two or three
days a week over the period of a month building
up to. Another strategy a lot of teachers will
use is to assign smaller parts of a project and
then over time those smaller parts can be put
together into a complete project. But again that
skill on, let's say we're doing that on a long
-term project, that will not automatically translate
into the executive function of planning what
I need to pack in the bag for next week as far
as my battery -charged calculator, my sharpened
pencils, my highlighters. I'm not doing that
kind of planning just because I planned for a
project. So the transfer is an issue. Number
three, and I thought this one was really interesting,
shout out to the SEL people who are listening.
We know from scientific research that stress,
sadness, loneliness, and lack of sleep. all have
negative impacts on executive function skills.
Now that one is huge when we think about how
many people are suffering from anxiety disorders,
depressive disorders, trauma backgrounds, how
many people are suffering from feeling lonely
or cut off from peers, our reliance on technology
which erodes human connection. And the amount
of stress and especially lack of sleep so many
of our students are experiencing, not only the
high schoolers, but our over -scheduled, over
-extended children as young as elementary. So
when kids are in way too many sports, way too
many clubs, pushing all the time, expected to
get really great grades, they're doing tutoring
outside of school. They're constantly on the
go. There's no time for the brain to relax, to
be creative, to reflect on planning, to reflect
on problem solving, which does not come under
stress. It comes from periods of reflection and
quiet. The more we put that onto children, the
more we are impacting their executive function
skills. in a bad way. So if we really want to
improve executive function overall, we've got
to make sure people are having some happy experiences
in their life, that they're getting a lot of
rest. The sleep rest and the downtime rest of
just not being under stress and not feeling disconnected.
So that's an important one for parents really
to keep in mind. as teachers there's only so
much of that we can impact because we see our
students for a small amount of time compared
to the rest of their their whole life but any
thing we can do to make our classrooms a safe
stress -free happy place the more we're benefiting
our students number five really struck out to
me they examined a lot of studies that focused
on physical exercise, some kind of being active
and what impact that might have on executive
function skills. So they looked at a lot of different
sports, a lot of different activities a student
might be in, cardio, aerobics, all sorts of things.
And while they do make some things better because
being physically active can reduce stress and
help you meet other people and connect and reduce
loneliness, that is a minor benefit. However,
physical activity alone is not tied to improving
executive function skills unless it's yoga or
taekwondo. The studies where students were put
into yoga practices or taekwondo practices, those
children increased executive function skills.
And here's the the asterisk to all of it. Whatever
you're doing, you have to be really happy about
doing it. Physical activity that brings you joy
will help increase your executive function skills,
especially if it's yoga or taekwondo. If you're
not liking what you're doing and you're forcing
yourself or you've been forced into a program
and you hate it, you're not going to get any
benefit. So there's some interesting future research
on that one for sure. But yoga and taekwondo
definitely help increase executive function skills
in most people who do it, as long as they like
doing it. Okay, and number one, two, three, four,
five, and the last big highlight of this article,
improving executive function challenges means
that the person has to be a little bit outside
of their comfort zone. They have to be a little
bit challenged. Not left alone. More like Vygotsky's
zone of proximal development combined with a
more knowledgeable other. Someone who can help
kind of challenge and push a person outside of
their comfort zone. It's not just practicing
the skills. That practice alone does not improve
executive function skills. There's got to be
a little bit of a challenge in there. If I go
back to my example of the teacher walking around
the room checking everybody's planner, the push
might be after I've Checked a few times and helped
students stood next to them make them write it
down word We're not leaving the room until we've
made sure together that this is complete, but
I'm doing it with the student I'm not leaving
them out in the cold. They know we're doing it
together I'm reading a few things off the board
to make sure they can see it. I made sure they
got it written down They did the writing we're
a team in this effort then over time I'm gonna
use a little bit of scaffolding and I'm gonna
prompt everyone. Okay, we're all getting our
homework in the planner. I'm about to walk around
the room. Here's what you're writing down. This
for math, this for English, this for history.
Then I start doing my walk. I might need to stop
at a student's desk and say, all right, you got
the math. We got two more. And now I'm not reading
from the board because I already gave them the
prompt. I'm pushing them to do it a little more
on their own. After a little bit of time, I scaffold
again and I say okay we're getting the homework
in the planner it's on the board when you're
done bring your planner up to me and then you
can pack up your bag to leave now I'm putting
that onus on the student they still have to come
to me and show me it's an end -of -day activity
then they get to wrap up their stuff and go home
I can either keep an eye on who's been up to
the desk or if it's a very large class maybe
I'm just putting little dots next to initials
on a list, something to track to make sure I've
seen everyone and they've shown me their work,
but I've really put it onto them. Now if I know
students are struggling with this skill, then
after a long break or after a certain period
of time, if I notice this is falling off, I'm
going to go back to the beginning where I stand
at the desk and I talk them through it. I'm going
to let them know that we're not just letting
go with this skill. We're going to keep working
on it over time and I'm going to go back through
the scaffolding and keep challenging them again.
Now, of course, this is a very simplistic strategy
and simplistic intervention, but it's something
pretty easy to implement in any classroom. And
parents, if you're listening and you want to
do this at home, the way you're going to do it,
it's not going to be that you're going to say,
You have to do the dishes after dinner and then
it never comes up again. It's that after dinner
first. I'm gonna say Let's get the kitchen cleaned
up. You are in charge of the dishes. I'm in charge
of wiping down the counters and now we're in
the kitchen together We're doing it together.
I might stand in the kitchen say I can't start
until you start Let's bring those dishes in here
and we're getting that done together and then
over time I'm going to step away from what I'm
doing in the kitchen, make sure they're getting
the dishes done. I'm going to give them some
other reminders. I'm not going to say you're
doing the dishes and then leave the room. I'm
still going to be actively a part of that process
until they're getting it done. If they want to
move on to another activity, I'm going to say
let me check those dishes first. Then when we
know that it's totally wrapped up, then you can
go on to something else. So I can still use the
scaffolding at home. But I want it to be a team
effort. I don't want it to be a punishing activity,
and I want a scaffold slowly checking in over
time to make sure things are done. That way I'm
really helping the child close the loop of starting
an activity and finishing it to completion, going
back to that inhibitory control. So pretty basic.
intervention model but it is something you can
do. So to wrap up our executive function talk
for today. Executive function skills can be improved
in different amounts for different people. It's
got to be targeted interventions. They have to
feel like you're in there with them. You need
to challenge them a little bit, not too hard
of a challenge, in a way that they can handle.
And you're using those scaffolding skills to
put the work back onto them and let them take
control of it. And we need to remember that once
the skill is learned, it is not stuck there forever.
We want to keep checking in over time. because
the executive function skills constantly need
to be worked so that they maintain whatever improvement
we've got. And our three parts of executive function,
inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive
flexibility. We need to train children on these
skills, help them practice, and help them develop
it over time. And when we do, we're going to
see better reasoning, problem solving, and planning.
Those are the skills that we're hoping to improve
over time. Okay, so that wraps up the things
I found most interesting from the article by
Diamond and Ling published in 2015. And I'd love
to know your thoughts and comments. What's working
for your students? What's working for your children?
What questions do you still have about executive
function and the interplay between that and dyscalculia?
there's quite a lot uh hopefully it was pretty
clear to you in the podcast but if you still
have questions please reach out you can find
me on the social medias i'm on tiktok instagram
youtube we have a teacher support group on facebook
that's almost 2 000 members strong very excited
about that and you can learn more at the what
in the world is dyscalculia podcast and email
me I'd love to have some of your feedback and
answer your questions about the math learning
disorder dyscalculia. Thanks for listening. We'll
talk again soon.