ABSTRACT
Self-regulation in a developmental context 410 Factors that influence development of self-regulation 412 Intervention themes 413 Community involvement as a foundation for the meaningful pursuit of goals 414 Case illustration 415
General management guidelines to facilitate development of self-regulation 416 Self-regulatory scripts and development of autonomy 416 Case illustration: Adolescent 421 Case illustration: Child with severe impairment 421 Evidence for self-regulatory=self-talk interventions 422
Intervention and supports for developing organizational skills 424 Teaching compensatory cognitive and academic strategies 425 Executive function=self-regulatory and positive behavior supports 428 Case illustration 430
Support-oriented interventions and avoidance of helplessness 431 Conclusion 432 References 433
The goals of this chapter are to clarify the concept of executive function=self-regulatory (EF=SR) capacity and skills, to describe factors that influence development of EF=SR in children, and to present intervention themes under the following headings: intervention within a community context, general management guidelines, SR scripts, intervention for organizational impairment, teaching compensatory cognitive and academic strategies, and behavioral interventions. Pharmacologic options are often relevant for children with EF=SR impairment, but are not within the scope of this chapter. We intend the themes of this chapter to be relevant to children from preschool age
through adolescence. Furthermore, despite frequent references to children with frank brain injuries, the themes are applicable to a variety of etiologies associated with EF=SR
impairment, including autism (Hill, 2004; Laurent & Rubin, 2004; Russell, 1998), attention-deficit=hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Barkley, 1997), fetal alcohol syndrome (Kaemingk & Paquette, 1999), and others. Children from socially disadvantaged environments are also at risk for EF=SR weakness, despite no clinical diagnosis (Waber et al., 2006). Most of the intervention approaches that we describe have a theoretical and research base, which we summarize. However, it is important to note that our orientation to serving children and adolescents with EF=SR impairment derives largely from a combined 45 years of work in two pediatric rehabilitation facilities and consultation in over 500 schools. This experience has led us to emphasize the role of everyday contexts in providing interventions and supports for children with EF=SR impairment and the critical role of everyday people within those contexts. These emphases can also be justified with reference to the large experimental literature on transfer of training as well as the growing literature on effectiveness of interventions for the populations under consideration. Interventions as we use the term include what is commonly referred to as rehabilitation as well as educational, cognitive, communication, and behavioral interventions and supports for awide variety of clinical populations.
An important goal for parents and the educational system is to have children learn how to regulate their emotions, cognition, and social behavior so that they act in a way that is consistent with family, school, and society standards and the needs of others, and that is also strategic in relation to their learning, academic, and social success. The sameEF=SR skills underlie emotional=social=behavioral self-regulation (e.g., controlling affective states, inhibiting impulses, deferring gratification, communicating respectfully, benefiting from feedback [Vohs & Ciarocco, 2004]) and cognitive=academic self-regulation (e.g., strategic reading, effective studying, taking responsibility for academic success [Meichenbaum & Biemiller, 1998]) and thus should be viewed within one consistent intervention framework (Ylvisaker, Jacobs, & Feeney, 2003). Other chapters in this book present considerations related to the definition of EFs
as a neuropsychological construct (see also Anderson, Levin, & Jacobs, 2002). Consistent with our previous work on the subject, we have chosen a functional definition of the construct, based on an analysis of prerequisites for successful performance of difficult tasks. These include some degree of awareness of ones strengths and weaknesses (thereby enabling a judgment of task difficulty) and an ability to set reasonable goals, organize plans to achieve the goals, initiate goaldirected behavior, inhibit impulses that interfere with goal achievement, monitor behavior and evaluate it in relation to the goals, benefit from feedback, flexibly select and modify strategies in response to performance feedback, and flexibly perceive situations from a variety of possible perspectives. Each of these components falls on a continuum of performance and develops gradually in childhood, in dynamic interaction with each other and with related domains of cognitive and social development (Flavell, Miller, & Miller, 2002). Because the term self-regulation is better understood by those unfamiliar with neuropsychological discussions of the topic and because that term brings to the table a large literature in related fields of psychology, we have chosen to combine the terms to form the general construct, EF=SR.
