Train Your Brain for Success: A Teenager's Guide to Executive Functions

by Randy Kulman PhD

Overview

Executive functions are a set of thinking, problem-solving, and self-control skills that tell the brain what to do, and this book demonstrates the ways kids use executive functions in school, at home, and in their other activities and shows how these skills can be improved through sustained effort. Beginning with a test to determine executive-functioning strengths and weaknesses, the book then explores in detail eight distinct sets of skills, including planning, organization, focus, time management, self-control, flexibility, memory, and self-awareness. In addition to giving an overview of each executive-functioning skill and how these skills are used in the real world, the book—intended as a self-directed learning guide for students themselves—also provides teens tools and tips for improving executive functions, including how to use video games, iPods, cell phones, and other electronic media to their advantage. A section for teachers and parents who may be dealing with a teenager with one or more executive dysfunctions is also included, as well as information for teens on how to recognize when they need help and where to go for help when a problem arises.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781886941762
Publisher:	Specialty Press/A.D.D. Warehouse
Publication date:	04/01/2012
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	100
Sales rank:	769,546
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Randy Kulman, PhD, is the founder and president of LearningWorks for Kids, an educational technology company that specializes in using video games to teach executive-functioning and academic skills. For the past 25 years, Dr. Kulman has also been the clinical director and president of South County Child and Family Consultants, a multidisciplinary group of private practitioners that specializes in assessment and interventions for children with learning disorders and attention difficulties. He is the author of numerous essays on the use of digital technologies for improving executive-functioning skills in children and is the coauthor of a chapter in the book Designing Games for Ethics: Models, Techniques, and Frameworks. He lives in Wakefield, Rhode Island.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction - How to Get Your Act Together 1

2 Learning about Your Skills - Take a Survey about Your Skills 5

3 Organization - Where is My Stuff? 15

4 Planning - What Should I Do? 23

5 Focus - When You Have to Pay Attention 31

6 Time Management - When You've Got Too Much to Do 39

7 Self-control - How to Stop, Relax, and Decide 47

8 Flexibility - Try Something New 53

9 Working Memory - If I Could Only Remember 59

10 Self-awareness - I Understand, I Understand 67

11 High-tech Ways to Improve Your Skills - Mom, Dad, I Need My Cell Phone! 73

12 Keep on Going and Growing - You Will Get Better and Better 79

Addendum: Parents' Guide 81

Editorial Reviews

"Fills an important gap in clinical practice by providing adolescents with practical, user-friendly strategies to improve their organizational, planning, memory, and time-management skills. . . . Dr. Kulman has done an excellent job of interweaving his wealth of clinical experience with empirically based research in describing strategies that teenagers can use independently or in collaboration with their parents." —George J. DuPaul, PhD, professor of school psychology and chair, department of education and human services, Lehigh University

From the Publisher