Page 2 - The Changing Chances Strength Based Approach to Control Centre Skills (Executive Function Skills) MASTER 2020

The Control Centre of Your Brain

The front part of our brain (its fancy name is the ‘pre-frontal cortex’) has neural circuits in
charge of important Thinking and Learning Skills (scientists call them ‘Executive
Function Skills).

This part of the brain is a bit like a ‘Control Centre’ because it keeps everything going
smoothly.

You need these Control Centre Skills to get on with others, learn in lessons, do homework,
get jobs done and enjoy activities outside of school.

There are six main Control Centre Skills:

1. Working Memory: Being able to:
▪ 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: Being able to:

▪ Make sense of the information you hear or see.

▪ React at a good speed – e.g. answer questions or follow instructions quickly enough.
3. Flexible Thinking: Being able to:

▪ 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: Being able to:

▪ Focus attention on the right things and manage distractions
▪ Keep attention on one thing to finish it.

5. Emotional & Energy Regulation: Being able to:

▪ Stay in control when you have big feelings.

▪ Change your energy to suit a situation.
6. Impulse Control & Inhibition: Being able to:

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

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