It’s human to crave connections. If there’s a silver bullet that comes closest to protecting kids, it’s the art of making meaningful connections with adults in their lives. This provides children with a sense of closeness and belonging ,which in return, contributes positively to their physical, social, psychological, and emotional health. Effective communication is the key ingredient to forming deep connections and parents, teachers and mentors need insights and tools to know ways to...

Reading comprehension is unequivocally the foundation of all other learning, not just during the formal years of education, but in creating socially engaged communities and an inclusive world. The ‘Active View of Reading’ framework suggests that complex executive function skills such as goal setting, planning, organizing, and sequencing information critically supports goal completion, mental flexibility, and learning how to learn underneath the reading and writing processes. New findings...

Modern living means living with uncertainty. We are surrounded by progress, yet the things we are unsure of keeps growing, needing us to skillfully cope; hence, making hard decisions without all the answers requires skill and courage. On the other hand, the world measures certainty as the mark of expertise and celebrates those who exude the attitude of invincibility through a firm disposition of ”be fast, be right, and be without a doubt.” So, how do we widen our personal cognitive horizons...

The start of the New Year always rings in new possibilities. However, setting and achieving goals for yourself and by yourself is harder than it seems. There are a multitude of obstacles including questions like knowing which tasks and ambitions to prioritize, where exactly to start, and how best to carry on when facing roadblocks and distractions. One truth remains though, we are likely to follow through with goals and pursuits that we are highly motivated about. On this episode, behavioral...

How would you feel if during your trip to Agra, India, someone offers to sell you the Taj Mahal (one of the greatest wonders of the world)? In its absurd glory you might question the offer as you read this, but not everyone did. One of the greatest con artists from India, Natwarlal aka Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, not only sold the Taj Mahal to unsuspecting foreign tourists, but also made out selling a few other historical monuments ~ and not just once, but multiple times. No one likes to be...

200 episodes! The Full PreFrontal Podcast has reached a significant milestone, and what does that mean to us? We’re “in it for the long haul!” We find inspiration from Japanese artist, On Kawara, known for his work that illustrates the beauty, structure, and discipline in doing something over a long period of time with persistence and care. A milestone often not only marks the start of a new chapter, but also serves as a reward for past accomplishments, both big and small.  Achievements are...

During the 2007 season of America’s Next Top Model, contestant Heather Kuzmich introduced American viewers to her diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder and the  challenges that go along with it. Having to live in a house with twelve strangers while navigating the social politics of housemates who were also her competitors proved to be quite a bit of challenge for Kuzmich and yet she won viewers’ hearts and ended up in the top five. While this success story offers inspiration and hope to many;...

If a boy has an odd affect, you might think he’s autistic. But if a girl has an odd affect, you’ll think she’s a drama queen!…How does autism present itself? And what if it presents in a way you might not expect? The ordeal of connecting, communicating, and belonging to a neurotypical world while being neurodiverse is the same as navigating the right-handed world while being left-handed ~ it can cause angst and challenge.  On this podcast, practicing clinical psychologist and co-author of two...

The process of educating children and growing as an educator in return requires everyone to acknowledge the bidirectionality that is inherent to teaching and learning. The context and culture that invests in both the academic growth of a child and also in the process that honors the input from its learning community brings itself into a new realm of possibilities. By carefully creating time and space to hear the voices of student stakeholders, educators discover meaningful ways to act upon...

Culture in general plays an important role in human development and particularly childhood is shaped by culture. Not so long ago raising children was considered rather noisy, dirty, tedious and anything but pleasant. However, those living in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies that make up about 12% of the world’s population have perpetuated over-protective child-rearing practices and principals while ignoring the cultural wisdom of the rest of the world....

Culture encourages girls and women to exhibit both traditional “feminine” qualities, such as being empathic, good with relationships, nice, obedient, good mothers, and home-organizers, as well as traditional “masculine” qualities, such as being assertive, competitive, academically driven, and career-focused. However, when girls display disruptive, hyperactive, impulsive, or disorganized behavior, they are at risk of harsher social judgment compared to their male counterparts because they...

Why is it that our resolve to lose weight, give up eating desserts, and start a new exercise regimen is bound to fail? Because we all have bought into to the conventional wisdom that follow-through with a new decision is simply a matter of conscious choice and decision and ultimately this belief ends up leading us astray. Even though it’s a common human experience to want to overcome ill-desired habits and change our ways, simply chanting the mantra of the “Just Do it” or reading self-help...

Research shows that young children with stronger Executive Function skills present themselves far differently than their peers and their behaviors and actions stand out a bit more. These children are more involved in their preschool classrooms, they interact more freely with their learning environment, and it’s less likely that they get put into “time out”. From there on, these students’ journeys puts them on the fast track to develop greater independence and self-sufficiently because they...

Raising children, which was always hard, has become harder; not because of the work that goes into changing diapers, preparing meals, taking kids to soccer or piano, or all the laundry that one has to do; but because not everyone is good with children. On top of that, in modern times and in modern living, parents’ abilities to control what children have access to has fundamentally changed, requiring parents to deal with difficult information and ongoing conflict in motives between what the...

There is no impulse more natural than the desire to protect ourselves and our loved ones from pain. When we experience social-emotional pain, we activate the same instincts as a mama bear who jumps to protect her cub as an effort to dial down emotions of distress. An unhealthy emotional pain management can lead to actively taking steps to inflict pain on others through the acts of withholding affection, interactions, or reciprocity. The “silent treatment” or social exclusion is one such...

Students with underdeveloped Executive Function skills often present themselves as highly impulsive or distracted, reactive rather than reflective, forgetful of their goals, lacking persistence or as those who dislike effortful tasks. Such behaviors often are alarming as they sabotage personal success and social cooperation. However, a myriad of traumatic exposures in childhood in Black communities leads to stress-related cognitive, emotional, and physiological compromise that tends to...

In a society where its members believe that one color or race is superior to another, its members who belong to the racial minority experience poor treatment based on these beliefs causing them social-emotional trauma. These racialized experiences get further accentuated by false narratives perpetuated by the society unbeknownst to its members which leads to an artificial gap that directly contradicts our mission of wanting to provide equal opportunities to ALL scholars. The trauma-informed...

The excitement of a new year also brings new challenges to overcome, especially as we continue to face educational, health, safety and well-being issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we gear up, how should we adjust our educational approach so that we can achieve our goals with our schools and communities? How can we keep students motivated and engaged to continue learning, but also, how do we develop patience and understanding throughout the community during this new normal that is...

It is said that a human body that has been traumatized or overwhelmed by stress can feel helpless, reactive, angry, impulsive, raging, numb and leaning towards avoidance. AND the same is true for schools! Institutions, public or private, that serve the needs of children, learners and families from distressed communities can also feel helpless and drained with an ongoing crisis or seemingly unmanageable chaos. These places and its people too can become reactive, angry or riddled with avoidance...

The violence in the United States this past month has brought up raw emotions in all of us.  The killing of Asian seniors as they were worshipping in their church, African-American elders as they went about their everyday tasks such as shopping for groceries, and the violent deaths of 19 small children with their two teachers who came to their elementary classrooms for a day of learning—all of this leaves us in a state of deep grief and pain. For some, this might elicit feelings of fear,...

Our commitment to multitasking in everyday life is unwavering and ubiquitous; a strong indicator of how our perceptions deceive us. We are not as smart as we think we are, neither are we as attentive as we think we are because the cluttered and distracted mind fragments our attention disrupting thinking, intentions, and follow through. On this episode, neuroscientist, researcher, John R. Park professor and head of the Cognitive Neuroscience Area in the Department of Psychology at the...

Life without struggles is no life at all and what accompanies these struggles is ambiguity, uncertainty, and disruptions. Coping under these tenuous conditions means deciphering new goals, weighing options, and being future-forward while responding with adaptive mental and emotional flexibility; all made possible by one’s evolving Executive Function. However, individuals who have experienced adverse childhood experiences develop a lifelong style of being mistrustful which poses its unique...

Researcher Diane Halpern says, “When people think critically, they are evaluating the outcomes of their thought processes – how good a decision is or how well a problem is solved.” Metacognition on the other hand is thinking about one’s own thinking and discovering how best to control our thinking to facilitate learning. Both require strong attentional and emotional recourses channeled as mental effort into new learning. Students who reflect on their own thinking are positioned to learn more...

On October 16, 1843, while on a stroll along the Royal Canal in Dublin, mathematician William Rowan Hamilton had an aha moment which led to his famed discovery of the algebraic equations known as quaternions which is now etched on the bridge. Research shows that although creative insight and analytical thinking are distinct modes of thought, they do complement each other. These aha or eureka moments are typically considered the manifestation of creativity in a few creative geniuses; however,...