1. Best paper for defining EFs and methods of developing them overall: Activities and Programs That Improve Children's Executive Functions, Adele Diamond (2012) https://sci-hub.se/10.1177/0963721412453722
2. Level 2. School Readiness
2.1. Language (early vocabulary)
2.2. Early numeracy skills (i.e., knowledge about number and quantity)
2.3. Social–emotional competence (emotional expressiveness, understanding of emotion, regulation of emotion and behavior, social problem solving, and social/relationship skills).
3. Level 3. Executive functions
3.1. Working memory governs our ability to retain and manipulate distinct pieces of information over short periods of time.
3.1.1. The most important EF for both math and literacy academic achievement.
3.1.1.1. Working memory refers to holding information in mind and mentally working with it. It is crucial for making sense of anything that unfolds over time, for that requires holding in mind what happened earlier and relating it to what is happening now. Therefore, working memory is necessary for makingsense of any linguistic information, whether read or heard. It is also needed for mentally reordering items (e.g., reorganizing a to-do list), understanding cause and effect, and mentally relating pieces of information to derive a general principle or see novel relations among old ideas
3.2. Mental flexibility helps us to sustain or shift attention in response to different demands or to apply different rules in different settings.
3.2.1. Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to change perspectives (e.g., to see something from another person’s point of view), change the way you think about a problem (e.g., think outside the box to attack a problem from a different angle), and be flexible enough to adjust to changed demands or priorities, admit you were wrong, and take advantage of sudden, unexpected opportunities
3.3. Self-control enables us to set priorities and resist impulsive actions or responses.
3.3.1. Underlies all academic achievement uniformly.
3.3.1.1. (a) controlling one’s behavior, for example, by overriding habitual responses, exerting selfcontrol (i.e., resisting temptations, such as the temptation to overeat or to respond impulsively rather than giving a more considered response), and exercising discipline (e.g., resisting the temptation to not complete a task); (b) controlling one’s attention (selective or focused); (c) controlling one’s emotions so as not to act inappropriately (an aspect of self regulation). In a longitudinal study in which 1,000 children born in the same city in the same year were followed for 32 years, Moffitt et al. (2011; Moffitt, 2012) found that children whose inhibition was worse (i.e., they had less persistence, more impulsivity, and poorer attention regulation) between the ages of 3 and 11 grew up to have worse health, earn less money, be less happy, and commit more crimes 30 years later than did those who had better inhibitory control as children, controlling for IQ, gender, social class, and home and family circumstances during childhood. Moffitt et al. (2011) concluded that because the effects of inhibitory control follow a linear gradient, “interventions that achieve even small improvements in [inhibitory control] for individuals could shift the entire distribution of outcomes in a salutary direction and yield large improvements in health, wealth, and crime rate for a nation.
4. Level 1. Life success
4.1. Complex language skills & Reading skills
4.2. Complex mathematical ability & Problem Solving
5. Level 4. Methods of **teaching** EFs
5.1. Clearly, EFs can be improved in children, even in those as young as 4 or 5 years of age, without specialists and even without computers. To improve EFs, focusing narrowly on them may be less effective than also addressing emotional and social development (as do curricula shown to improve EFs) and/or physical fitness (as do aerobics, martial arts, and yoga). I hypothesize that the programs that will most successfully improve EFs are those that challenge EFs continually and also bring children joy and pride, give them a feeling of social inclusion and belonging, and help their bodies to be strong, fit, and healthy (Diamond, in press)
5.1.1. Common for all three types of EFs was an adaptive algorithm, allowing training at the capacity limit of each child. EF demands need to keep increasing as children’s EFs improve, or few gains will be seen. The children were presented with the training program and asked if they wanted to play for a little while every day and if they agreed (which they all did) they were presented with a schedule were they should place a sticker for every day they had played. Five stickers would be rewarded with a small gift such as a car, small book or bubble blowers.
5.1.1.1. Outcome measures must test the limits of the children’s EF abilities to see a benefit from training. In studies of EFenhancing activities, the largest differences between intervention groups and controls are consistently found on the most demanding EF tasks and task conditions. It is often only when the limits of children’s EF skills are pushed that these differences emerge.
5.1.1.1.1. Children devote time and effort to activities they love; therefore, EF interventions might use children’s motivation to advantage.
5.1.2. Everyone does fine when EF demands are low. Group differences are clearest when substantial executive control is needed. EFs must be continually challenged to see improvements. Groups assigned to the same program, but without difficulty increasing, do not show EF gains
5.2. EF training appears to transfer, but the transfer appears to be narrow. For example, computerized WM training improves WM but not self-control, creativity, or flexibility
6. Level 5. Methods of **testing** EFs
6.1. In early childhood, individual domains of EF (e.g., working memory, inhibitory control, attention shift) are thought to be highly integrated (Carlson, Moses, & Breton, 2002; Diamond & Taylor, 1996; Hughes, Ensor, Wilson, & Graham, 2010; Wiebe et al., 2011; Wiebe, Espy, & Charak, 2008). As such, it is often standard practice in studies of early childhood to combine individual measures of EF into one single composite variable.
6.1.1. Working memory
6.1.1.1. Peg tapping
6.1.1.2. Literacy - PPVT-4
6.1.1.3. Forward Digits Span Task
6.1.1.4. Dimensional Change Card Sort
6.1.1.5. Vocabulary: NIH Toolbox Picture Vocabulary Test
6.1.1.6. Literacy - TOPEL
6.1.1.7. Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning
6.1.1.7.1. These eight clinical scales used in the BRIEF questionnaire form two broad classifications of executive functioning; Behavioral Regulation (BRI) and Metacognition (MI), as well as an overall Global Executive Composite (GEC) score (Gioia et al., 2000a).
6.1.1.8. Art of Learning
6.1.2. Mental flexibility
6.1.2.1. Peg tapping
6.1.2.2. Literacy - PPVT-4
6.1.2.3. Dimensional Change Card Sort
6.1.2.4. Vocabulary: NIH Toolbox Picture Vocabulary Test
6.1.2.5. Day-Night
6.1.2.6. Literacy - TOPEL
6.1.2.7. Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning
6.1.2.7.1. These eight clinical scales used in the BRIEF questionnaire form two broad classifications of executive functioning; Behavioral Regulation (BRI) and Metacognition (MI), as well as an overall Global Executive Composite (GEC) score (Gioia et al., 2000a).
6.1.2.8. Art of learning
6.1.3. Self-control
6.1.3.1. Peg tapping
6.1.3.2. Less is more task
6.1.3.3. Literacy - PPVT-4
6.1.3.4. Grass/Snow Task
6.1.3.5. Dimensional Change Card Sort
6.1.3.6. Vocabulary: NIH Toolbox Picture Vocabulary Test
6.1.3.7. Head Toes Knees Shoulders - computerized version (HKTS-c)
6.1.3.8. Literacy - TOPEL
6.1.3.9. Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functioning
6.1.3.9.1. These eight clinical scales used in the BRIEF questionnaire form two broad classifications of executive functioning; Behavioral Regulation (BRI) and Metacognition (MI), as well as an overall Global Executive Composite (GEC) score (Gioia et al., 2000a).
6.1.3.10. Art of learning