Understanding Learning Tools

It’s all about self-regulation.

Being successful socially, emotionally, and academically requires many skills. Students must be able to manage emotions and competing input, avoid distractions, inhibit impulses and behaviors, know what to pay attention to, and shift and focus their attention, just to name a few. This can be challenging in the best of times. Imagine trying to do these things without support from the part of the brain that controls most of these functions. These executive functions take place in the pre-frontal cortex. Access to this part of the brain is thwarted when we are not regulated. Fortunately, the pre- frontal cortex does not act alone. This region of our brain is involved in controlling behavior through interactions with all other parts of our brain. Unfortunately, these connections are also impacted when we are not regulated.