Aantekeningen kennisclips

Week 1

1. Executive functions
- What are executive functions?
o ‘Air traffic control system' in the brain
o A child has to manage a lot of information and avoid distractions
o Involving working memory, inhibitory control and mental flexibility
o Inhibitory control: stop whatever the person is doing and for example let someone
else take a turn
o Working memory: remember what you’re supposed to be doing
o Mental flexbility: being able to adjust what you’re going to do next
o Related to school due to:
 Concentration
 Juggling multiple demands, follow instructions
 Adapting to changing circustamstances
 Workign with others
 Dealing with setbacks
 Inhibiting immediate rewards
- Consequences of low executive functions
o Worse school performance
o Difficulty keeping jobs
o Lower incomes
o Difficulties maintaining relationships
o Increased risk for mental health problems
o Early identification and intervention by a school psychologist can reduce the chances
of children with ADHD suffering poor outcomes
- Definition executive functioning:
o Umbrella term for various cognitive processes that give rise to goal-directed
behavior
 Novel & demanding situations
 Flexible adjustment
 Adaptive behavior, creativity
o Monitoring and self-regulation of thoughts and action and the ability to plan your
behavior and to inhibit inappropriate responses
- People used to think executive functioning is one process
- BUT nowadays we know that executive functioning is comprised of 3 core components
- 3 core components:
- Working memory
o The ability to hold information in mind (maintentance) and mentally work with it
(manipulation)
- Inhibitory control (inhibition)
o The ability to suppress interfering thought and actions that are not relevant to the
task at hand
- Cognitive flexibility (mental flexibility, shifting, switching)
o The ability to change one’s perspective or approach to a problem, flexibly adjusting
to new demands, rules or priorities
- More complex executive functions:

, o Planning
o Reasoning
o Problem solving
o Performance monitoring
- Class recap
o Definition: umbrella term for cognitive processes important for goal-directed
behavior
o Executive functioning: important for academic success and success in life
o Three core processes: working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility
o

Questions

- How is executive functioning related to school?
- What are the core components of executive functioning?



2. Measures of executive functions
- Research to gain insight into typical development
- Each core component has a different developmental trajectory
- Clinical or school setting
- Executive functioning often impaired in clinical groups
o ADHD
o Learning disabilities (dyslexia)
o Depression
- Measures of simple executive functioning
o Go/NoGo task
 Measures ability to inhibit a prepotent response
 Participants are isntructed to press a button as soon as they see a go
stimulus, while when they see a Nogo stimulus they have to refrain from
responding
 More difficult to inhibit response when more Go stimulus are presented
before Nogo stimulus
o Child friendly Go-NoGo task
 Used pictures of pokemon to make it more child friendly
 Children made more errors in nogo trial than the adults
 The more go trials before a nogo trial the more difficult it was for the
children to respond correctly
 Children with ADHD have more difficulty with this
- Measures of complex executive functioning
o Advantages:
 Better predictor of EF problems in daily life
 Better predictor for school performance
o Disadvantages:
 More difficulty to identify disability
 More difficult to track development
o Tower of London
 Measures planning, involves spatial problem solving

,  Pieces moved 1 by 1
 Tak difficulty increases with the number of moves needed to solve the
problem
 Children make more moves then necessary compared to adults
 Adults took more time to plan their first move
o Tower of Hanoi task
o Stroop task
 Name the font of the colour, sometimes the same and sometimes different
(blue is blue/blue is red)
 Measures complex inhibition
 Keep a rule in mind while processing reading the word with inhibitory
control
 Task is not good for children because they are not that good at reading
 They faster recognize the colour instead of the word itself
o Day and night task
 Child-friendly version of the stroop task
 Picture of the sun and have to say night and with moon have to say day
 Measure automatic response inhibition
 Children make a lot of mistakes despite they know the rule
 Need more time to think about it
 Performance increases the most between the age of 3 and 7
o Delayed gratification task
 To measure inhibition and self-regulation
 The longer the child waits; the better able the child is to self-regulate
 Marshmallow task
o Delayed discounting task
 Self-regulation
 Adults!
 5 euros now or 20 in a week
 Child-friendly versions of the task might use toys/candy rather than money
o Dimensional change card sorting test (DCCS)
 Child friendly version of the wisconsin card sorting task
 First sort cards by one dimension (color or shape), then sort cards according
to the other dimension
 Measures cognitive flexibility, switching and shifting
 Inability to shift is called perseveration
 Inable to shift their behavior
 Performance of 3 year olds similar to patients with frontal lobe damage
 4 year olds perform correctly
 When 3 year olds are helped they perform much better
 Task difficulty influences conclusions
o Wisconsin card sorting task
 More difficult than DCCS
 No explicit instructions about rule
 No instruction when rule changes
 You have to infer sorting rule based on feedback
 More appropriate for older children