Page 8 - Improving Control Centre (Executive Function) Skills: A Strength Based Approach

The Control Centre of Your Brain

There are six main Control Centre Skills:

1. Working Memory:

▪ Hold information in your head for long enough to use it.

▪ E.g. Hold an instruction or direction in your head then follow it.

2. Thinking Speed:

▪ Make sense of the information you hear or see.

▪ React at a good speed – e.g. follow instructions quickly enough.

3. Flexible Thinking:

▪ Stop a task you enjoy and start one you need to do.

▪ Think of different ways to do things and solve problems.

▪ See different points of view and be able to compromise.

4. Attention Control:

▪ Focus attention on the right things and manage distractions

▪ Keep attention on one thing to finish it

5. Emotional & Energy Regulation:

▪ Stay in control when you have big feelings.

▪ Change your energy to suit a situation.

6. Impulse Control & Inhibition:

▪ Ignore distracting thoughts.

▪ Resist impulses to do things that aren’t helpful to you or others.

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