The tennis ball hits the net for the fifth time in a row. You are discouraged and want to give up. But then you picture Serena Williams serving the ball flawlessly over the net. You picture her form, her swing, the racket’s contact with the ball, and her follow through. Thinking about how Serena would…
May 1, 2018
Imagination and Brain Development
“Executive function refers to the brain skills that allow us to control our thoughts, actions, and emotions. These skills include cognitive flexibility (thinking about something in multiple ways and shifting gears, for example, transitioning smoothly from snack time to center time), working memory (holding information in mind and working with it, such as reminding yourself…
November 14, 2017
Executive Function Skills: Measure What Matters
Reflection Sciences’ Professional Development Team and Executive Function Experts have designed an early childhood session, “Executive Function Skills: Measure What Matters” that will be presented, live at Minnesota’s Metro ECSU on January 9, 2018. The session will address: What is Executive Function? Why should we measure it? What is the MEFS? How is the assessment…
April 28, 2017
Pretend Play in Child Development
According to pretend play in child development expert, Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota, and Reflection Sciences Co-founder, Dr. Stephanie M. Carlson, “Play is about as ‘blueprinted’ a behavior as you can have in terms of basic survival and reproduction.” Play, which by definition has no immediate purpose other than recreation, is…
September 12, 2016
How the Batman Effect Impacts Executive Function + Child Development
In her research, Dr. Stephanie Carlson has been able to help children to improve their executive function skills by encouraging them to pretend to be someone more competent than themselves, like Batman. She talks about this phenomenon, called psychological distancing, in an interview with Ginny from the Understood.org Team. Get a Free 5-minute Executive Function Assessment with EFgo for iPad and Android…