Full PreFrontal

Fame and success is not necessarily an antidote to self-doubt. Oscar-winning singer-songwriter, Sam Smith, once said, “I still doubt myself as a singer every day. Every time I step off the stage, I have ask someone what it was like. ...I really think I need to work on it.” The young performer’s life has seen some ups and downs, such as losing anonymity and putting his foot in his own mouth in front of 9 million people by inaccurately stating a fact during his Oscar acceptance speech, for which he was heavily criticized. Reading about Sam Smith you can learn that if you channel that self-acceptance through artistic courage into creating personal and confessional songs, people will respond to it and you yourself grow from it. Today, my client, Trevor Belmont, opens up to his vulnerabilities that have made his educational journey arduous as a young student with ADHD, depression, and Executive Dysfunction. This episode will give you an insight into Trevor’s process of reconciling with the fact that his talents and smarts were clogged in the funnel self-demonstration by his inabilities and weaknesses. And yet he has prevailed!

Jung-ah Choi writes that during a parent-teacher conference she discovered that her son was misbehaving in his kindergartner class. Upon further inquiry it turned out that her son was having a hard time complying with the class rule about not invading other people’s personal space. The teacher called it the “do-not-pop-the-bubble” policy. Choi’s son did not know how best to achieve the balance of engaging his classmates playfully without grabbing onto their hands or pulling them closer. A teacher expects her students to cooperate in the class, meet the policy expectations, and those who can’t or don't know how to ‘not-pop-the-bubble’ often get in trouble. When such trouble escalates, it leads to suspension or even expulsion. Today, my guest, Clancy Blair, Ph.D. will talk about ways to promote fundamental abilities, which helps children meet the classroom expectation of HOW to regulate yourself.

At age 6, his mother said to him, “Why don't you just kill yourself? You’re such a burden to me.” At age 9, his mother drove him away from home to the unfamiliar part of Baja, California and walked him into an orphanage saying that she found this orphan kid and left him there for 90 days before his grandmother got a hold of him and brought him back. Throughout his elementary school she beat him senselessly. This is a story of a gangster, Sergio, from the roughest neighborhood of LA as told by father Greg Boyle in his book, Barking to the Choir. This gut wrenching and sad story traces the roots of a young man turning to the streets to escape his misery. Children who grow up in poverty, unstable homes, and highly unpredictable circumstances experience chronic and unabating stress, which takes a toll on the very shock-absorbing system in the brain, the Executive Function. Today, my guest, Clancy Blair, Ph.D., will discuss the distinction between acute and short lasting stress that buffs the adaptive and resiliency skills and chronic stress which dismantles it.

In 1885, William Bentley placed a snowflake under his camera lens and took a first-of-its-kind photo only to then spend the next 50 years of his life capturing snowflakes with these incredible, vibrant designs. Apparently, the crystal of a snowflake starts as a tiny spec of dust or even pollen that attracts water vapor to form a preliminary hexagon called "diamond dust." After that, it’s sheer randomness how all the rest of the shape expands to form a beautiful and yet unique structure. The scientists know that factors such as temperature and humidity have some influence, but they are not completely certain as to why each snowflake is unique. We can apply the scientific truth behind the statement, "no two snowflakes are alike," to the human brain as no two brains are alike. At this point, we are not certain what makes each child’s brain unique and how it influences the development of self-regulation. Today, our guest, Dr. Fred Morrison, will shed light on the fact that we do know that when our students become self-regulated learners we will have more engaged learners in the classroom, greater ease in navigating the classroom instructions, and direct ways of impacting students’ abilities to persist.

The Google search for “how to teach a child to tie shoes” comes up with approximately 7.5 million hits. Obviously, parents and adults in general have recognized that folding over the shoelaces, crossing the bunny ears, and looping them to tie a knot needs to be taught with great care. However, you walk into any hallway in elementary, middle, or high school and two distinct trends appear. The shoes with laces are completely replaced with Velcro and many of those who ARE wearing shoes have their laces untied. Developing self-assessment to know when the shoelaces are untied and then engaging the impulse control to stop everything and tie the shoelaces to prevent a potential fall, is the hallmark of self-regulation. But a great deal of individual variability in learning self-control can pose a grave challenge to parents and teachers. Today, my guest Fred Morrison, Ph.D., will discusses how to think about self-regulation and Executive Function as a volitional self-directed control across the lifespan.

People like Dr. Mae C. Jemison live by the dictum, “if you're bored, you are not paying attention.” That philosophy has served her well as she is a former NASA astronaut and the first woman of color in the world to go to space. She could pay attention and direct her curiosity in whichever direction she wanted. Dr. Jemison got work done and kept on achieving. This was not the case for my client, "Scott Joplin," whose learning struggles began as a child when he was diagnosed with not one, not two, but multiple developmental disabilities which made his learning very laborious and paying attention quite exhausting. Scott had no shortage of intelligence and creative imagination, but the access to his own full capacity was upstaged by his difficulty in expressing his comprehension and delivering work when needed. He needed someone like me to untangle learning from learning-to-learn and the results were outstanding! Scott is a charming, caring, and very successful computer scientist whose commitment to self-development has payed off.

Have you ever tried to point out mistakes in someone – maybe in your child, spouse, employee, or even your boss? And what do you get? A sharp rebuttal or a strong push back. Peace comes to those whose self-concept and behaviors are in harmony with each other. If not, the result is cognitive dissonance. When you do something wrong, your brain is wired to try and relieve the tension it feels by immediately making up excuses for you. On today’s show, our guest, Dr. Carol Tavris, will give us some tips to handle this subconscious process so that we can learn and grow from our mistakes instead of simply denying and self-justifying.

Your 20-something-year-old son decides to buy a car without your help and you come to find out that he got ripped off. He tells you the story of what happened and you cannot believe it. Apparently, your son agreed to buy a car off Craigslist, gave your home address to a stranger, and thought nothing of the request to pay in cash, even when the seller showed up with a car that looked nothing like the one in the online ad. When you point out these red flags to your son, all he does is get mad and come up with reasons of self-justification, which makes you furious. Our guest, Dr. Carol Tavris, will say that, in fact, your son is just a victim of his brain’s own deception. Find out about the perils of cognitive dissonance and why we find it hard to accept our own mistakes.

On a daily basis we direct our attention, guide our instincts, and move from making micro to macro decisions feeling that we are fully in control of our inner machinery called the brain. While exploring the nature and development of Executive Function skills and its impact on learning and self-awareness, one can’t help but notice that many of us are unaware of ‘why we do what we do’. Today on the podcast, a world-renowned primatologist and celebrated author, Professor Fran de Waal, brings a perspective that we are not so different from the animals and the Interconnectedness between the good, the bad, and the ugly tendencies that form the true human nature are quite closely related to our animal counterparts.

Pre-teen years are a breeding ground for pimples, mood swings, eye-rolls, and social awkwardness. But that’s not the only stuff these kids have to adjust to. There is a remarkable shift in academic demands that’s far out and equally daunting. During the Middle School years, kids have to actually learn how to study for tests, independently write papers by elaborating on ideas, and manage their priorities to put together projects. The system assumes that somehow these kids will learn to swim just because we have thrown them into the water of self-management. Today, Lynn Meltzer, Ph.D., returns for the second time to discuss ways to teach these essential and intricate skills that go into managing goals and priorities to help support the development of Executive Function skills.

If not properly handled, some projects can spiral out of control like a runaway train. Assignments involving project-based learning professes that children learn best when they experience the real-world problems and solve them on their own. In one of the elementary schools I had worked with, students were spotted to rush in with awkwardly large … Read More Read More

What do a sponge, a needle, or a drill bit fragment have in common? Well these are the most common but harmful things that a surgeon can leave inside you that don't belong there. Remembering to retrieve things out of patient’s cavity before suturing the patient up requires prospective memory – remembering to remember. It's the most critical Executive Function process essential in managing life’s goals. Today, our guest Professor Mark McDaniel, will be talking about ways to help carry out our future intentions and prevent dire consequences of our forgetfulness.  * This is Professor McDaniel’s second podcast episode that provides an overview of tools and processes to manage prospective memory and Executive Function.

Elephants never forget! But I guess we do. Forgetting to drop off dry cleaning, book a hotel or register for a class on time can cause disruption if not devastation. Everyday we make plans to do things in the future. We have great intentions and a confident mental state that makes us believe that all … Read More Read More

However creative we might be, the human blind spot disallows us from imagining ourselves vividly in the distant future. Neuroscience says we are far better at constructing our past from memory as compared to projecting ourselves as a distant future-self. For example, in theory, posting 100,000 post-it notes all over the high school as a senior prank sounds creative and harmless, right? It was only after 29 Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk High School students got suspended that they were able to imagine what pickle they got themselves into. Interestingly, the class of 2012 Valedictorian and Salutatorian were among the suspended 29. We assume smarts makes us better at seeing our future-self but it may be not be so. On today’s podcast, my guest, Professor Hal Hershfield from the UCLA School of Management, will help connect Executive Function and the concept of future-self.

Since I read about Jeff Bezos’ email from June 9, 2004, I have concluded that my clients need my training to survive at Amazon!” Why?” you ask. Well, Bezos is demanding that his team use their Executive Function when making a pitch for a new idea. He wants everyone to move away from the simplistic bullet-point lists in PowerPoint presentations. Rather, he wants his employees to submit a 4-6 page "narrative" that he calls memos. Executive Function lets you orchestrate ideas into a complex sequence and then expand them into a cohesive form that we collectively call “impressive writing.” Today, in her second podcast appearance, my guest, Dr. Bonnie Singer, who is an expert in this and also happens to be a brilliant fellow Speech-Language Pathologist, will talk about teaching writing. Please give it a listen and share with all the parents you know. * This is Bonnie’s second podcast episode that discusses important techniques to improve the writing process with the lens of Executive Function.