Executive Functions

[martina]

Table of contents

1. Free time

Keywords

1. Executive functions
2. Social and emotional skills

The intelligence of the frontal lobes!​

Executive functions enable higher-level cognitive skills, typical of human intelligence, thanks to the frontal lobes. This is the part of the brain located just behind our forehead. Executive functions are very valuable for everyday life, making actions that require intelligence possible.

The term “executive functions” refers to the ability to regulate our behavioural response to the environment. They enable individuals to make plans, organise actions and time, solve problems, make decisions, find solutions based on feedback and errors, stay focused by ignoring external stimuli and, finally, organise social and emotional behaviour.

A way to train executive functions is the well-known board game called “Mastermind”. The game is aimed to crack the secret code using deductive reasoning.

And you, how do you train your Executive Functions?​ Discuss it with the community members​

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The intelligence of the frontal lobes!​

Executive functions enable higher-level cognitive skills, typical of human intelligence, thanks to the frontal lobes. These are the parts of the brain located just behind our forehead. The frontal lobes are the last area of the brain to fully develop (during the adolescent age) and to appear in evolutionary history; they are very valuable for everyday life, making actions that require intelligence possible.



What are executive functions?

The term “executive” refers to the ability to regulate our behavioural response to the environment. In fact, executive functions control and coordinate other cognitive abilities and behaviours. They allow you to select actions appropriate for the context and to achieve your goals. They enable individuals to make plans, organise actions and time, solve problems, make decisions, find solutions based on feedback and errors, stay focused ignoring external stimuli and, finally, organise social and emotional behaviour. Executive functions also include working memory, which is the ability to store some information for a short period in order to process it, for example in mental counting.


Why are they so important in everyday life?
Apart from awareness, our brain executes numerous pre-planning steps that allow us to perform daily activities. Frontal lobes are used in everyday tasks, such as planning daily activities, organising paths from a store to another, getting dressed. They are used also in order to flexibly modify plans and adapt behaviour to new conditions when unexpected events occur. Impairment of executive functions includes difficulty in organising, making plans or starting and completing a task. It makes communication difficult, particularly verbal fluency, and could lead to inappropriate social behaviour. Mood swings or changes in behaviour and personality may sometimes be observed.
Studies suggest that physical activity can improve executive functions and neuronal efficiency (see Physical Activity in Outdoor section).
Here will be presented some apps and games that use executive functions!

	In this app there are several types of games that work on executive functiions: mapping the route with one line, sudoku, sliding block, summing numbers, building the tower with the minimum number of movements, guessing the hidden color sequence.. Progressive levels of difficulties are present. (iOS and Android)
	Tangram is s game in which you have to recreate the given shapes. You work on the ability of planning and mentally organize the blocks movements, training mental flexibility and the ability to plan an action step by step. You can also mentally rotate shapes using working memory.
	The aim is to select the name of the color or the color of the word written. You train the inhibitory ability to remain focused on the task, even in presence of distractors.

Board Tables

	Mastermind: it is a game that trains planning and scheduling skills, and the ability of using feedback and mistakes to deduce rules to create the correct combination of colored balls.
	CodeNames: the aim of this game is to get your team to guess some words using logical association as hints. It could be useful to train mental flexibility and the ability to abstract things and make connections between terms.
	Cortex: it is a game that trains concentration and logical thinking. There are several games/boards inside. In particular, the ones that work on inhibition and working memory are: find the combination of numbers that add up to give the number in the center; recognize which colour name is written using a different colour.

Recommendation
No one knows better than you what time and level of game is perfect for you, so remember to stop before you experience or sense any tiredness or boredom in your family member! Playing is a time of pleasure, dedicated to mental training while feeling good and comfortable.

And you, how do you train your Executive Functions? Discuss it with the community members​

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