"...Programs that build self-discipline may be the royal road to building academic achievement."
– Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents. Psychological Science, 16(12), 939–944
"Executive Functions are the cognitive processes occurring in the frontal lobe area of the brain that oversee higher-order competencies such as planning, organizing, making decisions, paying attention, regulating behavior, solving problems and evaluating choices."
– Rush Neurobehavioral Center Executive Functions Curriculum, page 1 (2014)
Executive skills are brain-based skills required for humans to perform or execute tasks. Most of us have a spectrum of executive skills strengths as well as weaknesses. The goal of this program is to implement and design interventions to address specifically identified weaknesses.
In neuroscience terminology, there are eleven separate skills included within the definition of Executive Function:
Response Inhibition(thinking before you act)
Working Memory(holding information in memory while performing complex tasks)
Emotional Control(managing emotions to achieve goals and tasks and direct behavior)
Sustained Attention(paying attention despite distractions, fatigue, and boredom)
Task Initiation(beginning projects without procrastinating)
Planning And Prioritization(creating steps to complete a task knowing what is important and what is not)
Organization(creating and maintaining systems to keep track of information or items)
Time Management(estimating how much time there is, how to allocate it, and knowing that time is important)
Goal-Directed Persistence(identifying a goal and following through to completion without distraction from competing interests)
Flexibility(revising plans as conditions change)
Metacognition(self-monitoring, and self-evaluating)
Other findings:
Mastery of Executive Functions skills is a better predictor of school success than IQ
Poor performance in Executive Function skills is associated with high drop-out rates, drug use, and crime
Self-regulation skills predict development across all domains, emotional and academic
Self discipline is a greater predictor of academic performance than IQ
88% of college students reported that time management was the single most challenging aspect of college life
87% of college students reported that organizational skills were their chief obstacle to obtaining good grades in college.
Summary
Underachievement among American students is often blamed on inadequate teachers, boring textbooks, and large class sizes. We (the researchers) suggest another reason for students falling short of their intellectual potential: their failure to exercise self-discipline . . . We believe that many American students have trouble making choices that require them to sacrifice short-term pleasure for long-term gain, and that programs that build self-discipline may be the royal road to building academic achievement.
– Duckworth and Seligman, as published in Psychological Science, 2005
Read more about Megan's approach to unlocking efficiency in "Erin Maurer's Story"
Erin Maurer's Story
The journey of a homeschooling mother of two dyslexics.