Practical Access Podcast

S6 E4: Executive Function with Dr. Matthew Marino

October 20, 2021 Season 6 Episode 4
Practical Access Podcast
S6 E4: Executive Function with Dr. Matthew Marino
Show Notes Transcript

Executive function includes working memory, planning, organization, social inhibition, self-regulation, and cognitive flexibility. It is an area where many students with disabilities struggle (Vasquez & Marino, 2020). Today Drs. Lisa Dieker and Rebecca Hines sit down and talk with their colleague, Dr. Marino. 

Dr. Marino is an associate professor of Exceptional Education at the University of Central Florida and a former secondary special education, science, and technology teacher. Tune in as they talk about executive functions and discuss some practical strategies and tips that parents and educators can work on with students. 

Don't forget we love to hear from our listeners! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. We look forward to receiving your questions on our Google Phone (407) 900- 9305, Facebook (Practical Access), Twitter (@AccessPractical), or Instagram (@Practical_Access).

References
Vasquez, E., & Marino, M. T. (2020). Enhancing executive function while addressing learner variability in inclusive classrooms. Intervention in School and Clinic. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1053451220928978

Lisa Dieker  0:07  
Welcome to Practical Access. I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines  0:10  
And I'm Rebecca Hines. And Lisa, today, we have an expert in many things joining us. But I think our primary topic is going to be executive function. So tell us about today's guest.

Lisa Dieker  0:26  
Well, we have with us a friend, which we always like to remind people, everybody's our friend, Dr. Matt Marino, who is an expert in science, special ed, and today executive functioning. So thanks for joining us, Dr. Marino.

Dr. Matt Marino  0:42  
Thanks for having me.

Lisa Dieker  0:44  
So we thought we'd start with the hardest question possible. Our audience is all about being practical. What is executive functioning?

Dr. Matt Marino  0:53  
That's a great question. So executive functions are cognitive control abilities that start in your prefrontal cortex, okay, at the front of the brain, and this is the part of your brain that you use to manage attention, emotions, and your pursuit of learning and goals.

Lisa Dieker  1:10  
Got it. So, I'm a teacher, and I got a kid who's missing one of those three. Where do I start? Is there a magical spell? What do you, what do you got to offer for us there, that's very practical?

Dr. Matt Marino 1:23  
Well, the first thing I like to do is evaluate what skills a student has, right. So see where their areas of strength are, and where their areas of deficit might lie. And so a lot of times, you'll find a kid who may be very good at planning, which is one of the executive function skills, but they do a terrible job at task initiation, right. So they do the best plans in the world, and you sit down with them, and they say, here's my plan, I'm going to go carry it out. And they get to wherever they're going to carry it out. And they sit down at the computer, and a video game comes up and they go, oh, I want to play that. And then you've lost the kid.

Rebecca Hines  2:07  
I think that's a great description. So let's, let's draw this out a little more, and look at some more roles in promoting executive functions. So what do you what would you say is the kid's role in learning executive function? In other words, if I'm, if I'm the kid, and you're trying to teach me executive functioning, what kind of ownership would you expect me to take? And how are you going to initiate that?

Dr. Matt Marino 2:34  
Good question. So the development of executive function skills is going to fall on a continuum. And it'll be variable for kids based on who they are their age, grade, etc. And so it's really going to be dependent, Becky, on how old that kid is, and how much ownership you think he or her, or he or she may have. But what I would say is that by the time they get to middle school, that's the time when I think you can most effectively start to prepare them for executive function skills, right? So I have a nine year old, I can talk to him till I'm blue in the face, it doesn't really affect the way his executive function skills operate. My middle school student, she does a much better job. If I asked her a question like, What did you do to prepare for this assignment? In terms of is she organized? Does she have a timeline? Is she initiating tasks, etc?

Rebecca Hines  3:38  
And I think that I think a lot of that comes with kind of what you're suggesting, which is that younger kids really don't have that same degree of abstract thinking. And there's, there's some abstract thinking involved in this whole idea of executive function. So let's think about those younger kids. What can I do now switching to teachers, if I'm a teacher of younger children, what kind of readiness things can I do? So even if they're not mature enough to be able to be great decision makers yet, abstractly what are some precursors to those skills that I could that can focus on?

Dr. Matt Marino  4:18  
Good question. And actually, elementary school teachers do a really great job of this, right? So when you walk into a lot of the elementary classrooms, you'll see a board with all the objectives for the day, you'll have times next to those, the teacher will go up after an assignment has been completed, they'll check the box off so that the students know that they've achieved that objective, and then they'll move on to the next piece. The problem comes when the students have to construct that visual organizer on their own, and that's when they start to struggle. So like I said, elementary usually does a really nice job of this. At the middle school, we tend to think, well, they should have it by now. And then they don't. And then they don't have any of the planning or the follow through on their own.

Lisa Dieker  5:11  
Yeah, it's interesting. I know that one of the things that Becky and I have been doing is kind of helping teachers with this, because we have this great Venn diagram, we both like that says, you know, you can no content, I can teach you social emotional learning, but if you don't have executive function, you're not going to get a job and keep a job. And for those parents who want their kids to leave their home, and not be in their pocketbooks forever, I think your topic is really, really important. And so with that said, I'm thinking about two parts. So I'll ask the first part, and then let you answer. As a parent, what is the thing I should be doing more of in my home to build executive functioning, no matter the age? 

Dr. Matt Marino  5:54  
So asking questions, in terms of the students thought process is, is critical in my opinion. I do that with both of my kids, if they're doing something that I feel is going to be counterproductive, or they have assignments that I know they have due, without saying, hey, you need to get this done I'd rather say to them, what do you think you might want to do to prepare for class tomorrow, and get them to start doing some of this, their own self reflection and metacognitive thinking. 

Lisa Dieker  6:28  
I love it. And so one of the things I know you're an expert in is science. And that intersection in science and special ed. What would you recommend science teachers be doing in their classroom, to build that executive functioning skills in their classrooms? I think it's a great content area for that. But I bet you have some really good practical ideas there.

Dr. Matt Marino  6:51  
Right, so one of the things that I used to do when I was a middle school teacher was I scaffolded instructions so that students who didn't need as much support could go on and do things independently and actually extend what was in the lesson and do things independently, that maybe I had thought of. Whereas other students might need a very detailed plan to follow in order to be successful and I would end up putting down the timeline for completion and when they were going to start on different pieces of it so that they could get to that end product. So backwards mapping for some students. But that, again, is a continuum, where you have your most advanced kids being able to go on and do all of this independently. Whereas your kids who have the most cognitive deficits have a very structured plan that they're following.

Rebecca Hines  7:48  
Thanks, Matt. I know that when it comes to executive functioning, that idea of decision making is critical, and teaching kids to learn to to make decisions. So certainly, as parents or as teachers, we can put kids into position have to make decisions. But could you give us a specific example in the classroom of, you know, what, what would be a way that I as a teacher can promote decision making.

Dr. Matt Marino  8:18  
Alright, so if you're going to have, let's say, a group activity where you've got kids moving from center to center, then I would say an activity where you've got kids planning, which centers they need to go to at which time is going to be most effective. And perhaps you don't even want to set time limits, because for some kids, they're going to get to a center and they're going to find that they're completely emerged. And what's going on there is working for them. Those kids you really don't want to interrupt, right, because they're in a spot where they're being productive. Whereas you could have another kid who thinks I'm going to go to the center, and my buddies going to the center too so we'll be really great together getting all of our work done. And they end up not doing anything, and being completely off task and then you've got to go over, and the way I would handle it is I would ask one student in that class, to be the monitor, or the person who was looking around making sure everyone was on task if they weren't on task I often found it was more effective for a student to go up to them and ask them a reflective question then if I went over and ask them that question. 

Rebecca Hines  9:37  
That's a great example.

Lisa Dieker  9:38  
Well, I'm going to fast forward as to kids are all grown up. They're getting ready to go to college and I know your research has really looked at kids, specifically kids with disabilities, and for those parents who are listening, it's really scary to send a kid with a disability off to college period speaking from experience. But you've been looking specifically at those kids that are missing kind of that executive functioning on college campuses, what are some patterns parents should look for? And maybe what are some strategies that parents should make sure their kids have before they come to college?

Dr. Matt Marino  10:13
Sure. So it's interesting, we just finished doing a survey of 150 undergraduates who had recently graduated, or were still in school and STEM majors. And we found that the number one problem that they reported based or around executive function was task initiation. So if you look at your students, and you can see that they come home they've planned, yet when it comes time for them to actually sit down and do something they're not following through. That would be a great time, in high school, for you to start some positive interventions are going to help them proactively think about initiating tasks prior to them being independent, because once they get to college, no one's gonna come around and ask them if they've started that science project that's due in three weeks. Right? And so they may really struggle with that task initiation. And that's what our coaches are working with kids the most on. 

Lisa Dieker  11:16  
Do you find that to be gender different? I mean, do you find there's more, different for different, whether any indicators, female versus male on that information or the work you've been doing or not?

Dr. Matt Marino  11:29  
That's a great question. We have not completed enough of the analysis yet for me to tell you definitively one way or the other. 

Lisa Dieker 11:36 
Okay, interesting. 

Rebecca Hines  11:37  
So my final question, Matt, let's say I'm a teacher or parent and I do want to be a little better educated about executive functioning, but I also really want to know some specific things that I could do. Do you have any resources you could direct me to? And it doesn't have to be that it's an executive function website. It could be project based learning, or whatever you think, as an expert, would help me to start integrating some elements of executive functioning into my classroom. 

Dr. Matt Marino  12:10  
Right. So I think that executive function closely aligns with the Universal Design for Learning Framework, right. And so Dr. Vasquez and I co-wrote an article that was just published recently, an intervention in school and clinic that looks at how you can encourage executive function, and universal design for learning within the classroom. So that was looking at secondary level now. But we still have plenty of examples in there, along with software that can be helpful for kids as well.

Lisa Dieker 12:49  
So my last question is, is aligned with some of your work with the Center for Innovation Design and Digital Learning as one of the co-directors of that national center, but also your past work with gaming. And so here's the loaded question, does gaming make your executive functioning worse or better?

Dr. Matt Marino 13:10  
That's a great, that's a really good question. I would say that it actually improves it and I'm going to base that completely anecdotally on my son and his love of gaming. So, I have not conducted any official studies that, that looked specifically at that, but I will tell you that my son loves to play video games and as a result, his visual perception and organization is highly related to success within the game. And so he will play through a number of different games, and he will remember every detail and when a specific task was initiated within that game, and he will come back and proactively plan to either avoid that in the future, or he will have a plan to circumvent whatever that barrier is that's going to present itself at that time. It is pretty impressive.

Lisa Dieker  14:15  
And so again, maybe better than a movie watch where the plot is set for you, at least the game makes the brain makes some choices in life, I think.

Dr. Matt Marino 14:23  
Oh my gosh, yes. I think that there's no comparison between watching, so if he had a choice to watch a YouTube video or play a game about a concept, he would clearly want to play the game more. And I would say that he would actually improve his performance. Now, whether that performance would translate to an increased test score, I would say, probably not. But his conceptual understanding of the content would clearly be higher based on gameplay.

Lisa Dieker  14:57  
Got it. And I know that's some of the work you've done. Well, we thank you for giving us the great executive functioning 101 and some wonderful practical tips and for being a great colleague making an impact in the field. So thank you for joining us. And if you have questions, please post them on our Facebook page at Practical Access. Or you can tweet us @accesspractical. Thanks, Dr. Marino.

Dr. Matt Marino  15:21  
Thank you ladies have a great day.