Executive function is essential for life success, helping us to plan, behave, and make decisions optimally.

Executive function skills develop indirectly through content: by participating in other engaging activities.

Music education promotes these skills by kindling inhibitory (self) control, leading to greater life success.

Ellen Galinsky is a leading educational researcher who has spent more than two decades studying how children learn and thrive.

She has numerous credits to her name: She is the president of the Families and Work Institute, a senior research advisor to AASA (the School Superintendents Association), and has collaborated on research with the Johns Hopkins International Arts Mind Lab.1 Among her many books, she has authored Mind in the Making, about early childhood learning, and The Breakthrough Years, which focuses on adolescence.

Executive Function: Skills That Matter

About 25 years ago, Galinsky’s research led her to realize that “… [the] children [who were] most likely to be learning and thriving were developing a set of crucial skills.”2 These neurocognitive (brain thinking) skills are known as executive function skills.

Renowned neurologist Antonio Damasio defines executive function as mental processes that allow us to plan, follow social rules, manage our time, and make smart decisions.3

In Galinsky’s eyes, these mental processes include four key components:

Cognitive flexibility: The ability to switch gears and adapt to changing situations

Working memory: Holding and processing/using information in your head short-term

Inhibitory control: Resisting impulses, staying focused, and delaying gratification

Reflection: Evaluating your responses to situations and challenges to optimize future responses

Far from being "soft skills," Galinsky stresses that executive function skills are essential for success in life. She notes there are numerous studies showing that executive function skills help children—and adults—succeed now and in the future. According to Galinsky and other experts, these skills are, in fact, some of the best predictors we have of lifelong success, affecting everything from academic achievement to physical and mental health and future wealth.

Can Executive Function Be Taught?

Executive functions underlie all intentional thinking and largely take place in the prefrontal lobes.4 These brain regions show significant growth during early childhood and adolescence, which is when executive functions are most malleable and educable.

How can one........

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