Resources

Let's SING to LEARN! If you have been to any of my executive function workshops, you know I love to sing songs with students to teach them about their self-regulation, attention, memory, planning, and cognitive flexibility. Moving and singing in time with peers provides a valuable opportunity to practice beat competency, self-regulation, and focused attention. Music naturally engages multiple attention and memory systems simultaneously. When cognitive skill lessons are embedd

Just in case my newsletter today didn't reach you, here is what I shared with our executive function community. Good Day Colleagues, It's a beautiful day for sharing resources with you all to support children's cognition and learning. We finished our Executive Function curriculum for the classroom. It's heading to the publisher for design. Can't wait to share that with you. I hired a wonderful artist to design the "My Attention Engine" storybook that goes with our FREE Exe

One of my favorite topics to discuss with students is the importance of their Attention Engines. We wrote a song about this, and we now have a downloadable lyrics book to accompany it. Soon, we will also publish a children's book with a story you can read with your students. I'll never forget the day I sang the chorus to Attention Engine with a student, and he replied with a hand on his hips, "Dr. Lynne, why didn't anyone ever tell me about my attention cycle?" Click the imag

Every student knows the feeling: you're sitting in class, trying to pay attention, and suddenly you realize you have no idea what the teacher just said. Your mind wandered off to lunch, or last weekend, or that thing your friend said at recess. And then comes the familiar thought: What makes me so distracted? Here's what every child—and every teacher—needs to know:   Attention shifts from moment to moment. When you raise your awareness of when you are focused and why your bra

Visual Processing Skills: Building Blocks for Learning and Development Visual processing encompasses a sophisticated set of cognitive abilities that allow children to make sense of the visual world around them. These skills work together as an integrated system, enabling everything from reading and writing to navigating playground equipment and solving math problems. Understanding these skills helps educators, clinicians, and parents recognize both strengths and areas where c

According to the American Optometric Association (AOA), approximately 25% (1 in 4) of all children have a vision problem significant enough to impact their learning. While exact numbers vary, studies suggest around 3-4%  of children have significant visual processing deficits like Cerebral Visual Impairment (CVI) or Nonverbal Learning Disability (NVLD), though some estimates place general vision problems affecting learning as high as 10-15%, and even higher (30-60%) in childr

Deep Pressure & Vestibular Input Help Children Calm When children become dysregulated in the classroom, their brains are telling us something important: the demands of the moment have exceeded their current capacity to cope. Dysregulation isn't a failure of character or a choice to misbehave-it's a neurological reality. The child's brain has detected a threat, whether that's sensory overload, cognitive overwhelm, social stress, or physical discomfort, and has automatically sh

We enjoyed an engaging webinar on the role of music and movement in cognition and learning with Alex Doman at Advance Brain Technologies. When we strengthen the brain through rhythm and music, children build the skills they need to succeed in school, relationships, and daily life. 🔸 Why rhythm is the foundation for language, cognition, and social connection 🔸 How music helps children regulate emotions and build focus 🔸 Everyday activities that combine movement and rhythm t

A child's physical coordination and movement skills are inherently connected to their developing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral abilities. This is especially clear during the early years of development when children discover the world through sensory experiences, motor actions, exploration, and play. In this article, you will find 12 activities to support your young children's motor, cognitive, and language skills. Developmental Milestones Achieving motor milestones lik

Physical activity, neuroplasticity, and brain growth are interconnected elements in childhood development. Regular physical activity stimulates neural growth and strengthens connections between brain regions, enhancing cognitive function, learning ability, and emotional regulation. Our students need to physically move 2-5 minutes every 45 minutes in class to prime the brain for learning. Our next book about movement, music, and cognition will include over 50 activities for yo

Steven G. Feifer D.Ed. Shared with the permission of Jack Hirose & Associates According to a recent survey conducted by the Canadian Mental Health and Access to Care (2022), more than 5 million Canadians were experiencing symptoms of mental illness in the aftermath of the world-wide pandemic.  Unfortunately, the mental health of children was disproportionately impacted by the pandemic as well, due primarily to extended disruptions in education, as well as forced social distan

Cognitivities Help Children Self-Regulate The human brain and music share an ancient relationship. When humans listen to or engage with music, multiple brain regions activate simultaneously in a neural symphony of their own (Toader et al., 2023). This is particularly significant for children as their brains are in an important period of development, forming neural connections at an astonishing rate, particularly in areas related to language, emotional regulation, and executiv

Crawling is a foundational developmental milestone that does far more than help babies move around. Research shows that when infants crawl, they develop crucial cross-lateral movements where opposite sides of the body must coordinate - right arm with left leg and vice versa. This cross-patterning helps establish important neural connections between the brain's hemispheres. Beyond physical coordination, crawling is vital in developing depth perception and spatial awareness. As

Lynne Kenney, PsyD Reading requires a complex interplay between cognitive, sensory, and motor processes. Sensory motor skills are fundamental to developing good reading skills in elementary school because reading involves more than just decoding letters and words on a page. Sensory motor skills are those that involve the coordination of movement with sensory input, such as eye-hand coordination, gross and fine motor skills, and spatial awareness. Initial sensory-motor develop

Teaching children how to slow down enhances self-regulation. Today on our Executive Function Festival on Instagram and Facebook, we are doing some cognitive-motor activities to enhance self-regulation. Here are some of the benefits of motor movement for calming. https://www.instagram.com/drlynnekenney Engaging children and adolescents through rhythm - The benefits of coordinative cognitive rhythmic movement for children's self-regulation include: Activating executive function

Written By Dr. Lynne Kenney, PsyD for Fit & Fun Playscapes  via ... Self-regulation is a core executive function skill associated with academic achievement, learning, behavior, and successful social relationships in children. Self-regulation is generally defined as the ability to manage one’s thoughts, behaviors, and feelings to achieve goal-directed behaviors. Self-regulation is so important that, for many children, it is a better predictor of early academic success than is

Lynne Kenney, PsyD & Alice Li, BS Boston College Recently an occupational therapist who attended our executive function workshop in Toronto, Canada wrote to ask how I view the difference between visual-perceptual and visual-spatial skills. This got me reflecting and looking into the science. In clinical practice, I usually view visual-perceptual skills as the ability to orient in space, interact with objects such as balls, bean bags, cones, and physical objects, and the abili

Teachers, clinicians, and parents are often looking for simple and effective ways to help children practice self-regulation, self-control, attention, and response inhibition; skill sets essential to successful learning and behavior. Self-regulation is the ability to manage one's thoughts, behaviors, and emotions to achieve goal-directed prosocial behaviors. Children’s ability to self-regulate (exercise control over their dominant impulses; calm themselves when over-energized)

When we think of music, often what comes to mind, is a song. We may think of Broadway musicals, Bach, or Taylor Swift. In our minds, songs may play throughout the day. Music is a universal language    central to civilization for thousands of years. Before we had language, we used musical tones and sounds to communicate. The tone of a grunt signaled a message from our prehistoric ancestors, while the beat of a drum brought village people together in unity far and wide. What w

Over the past 20 years, we have developed engaging cognitive-motor & executive function activities to help clinicians and educators who work with neurodiverse children to stimulate self-regulation, self-control, response inhibition, attention, and memory. Current studies on the relationship between executive function and emergent academic skills in preschoolers, kindergartners, and older children have shown that executive function significantly relates to both mathematics and