The Challenge

The Challenge…

·      Social costs of the Achievement Gap. Despite decades of effort, far too many children from disadvantaged backgrounds fail to reach proficiency early in elementary school. As a result, their lives are put on a different track, creating lifelong costs for them personally and for society in general.

·      The EF Readiness Hypothesis. Recent pilot research suggests that impaired Executive Functions (EF) development may be a key hidden factor holding back these learners. The EF Readiness hypothesis is that children will be impaired in reaching proficiency if they are not ready to coordinate attention and thinking in a way required to master school subjects.

·      Our Project’s mission is to develop better ways for schools to manage EF Readiness as a means to close the ‘proficiency gap’ and support school turnarounds.

What is Executive Function Readiness?

·      Executive Functions are often described as the ‘air traffic control system for thought’, underlying the way attention and thinking are coordinated.

·      Executive Functions, seated in the prefrontal cortex, develops slowly from birth to adulthood. In pre-school years EF development can be impaired by high stress and by social neglect.

·      Executive Function development spans six aspects: how attention is deployed, working memory, deductive reasoning about observations, organization of a flow of thoughts, shifting perspective and maintaining focus.

·      EF Readiness is attaining a developmental level in these 6 interdependent cognitive functions sufficient to solve problems in core school subjects such as Math and English Language Arts.

What is needed to address EF Readiness?

·      Schools’ ability to close the gap can be undermined if they do not have the tools to observe and resolve EF Readiness problems in the early years. Our Project seeks to provide schools with the tools they need to manage EF Readiness.

·      Better Measurement Tools: developing a better way to measure EF development so that schools can quickly map the problem.

·      Better Management Tools: based on better measurement help schools lift learners to EF readiness in early years.

·      Better Interventions: using better measurement identify the most effective interventions for EF Readiness.