Lesson 2 • Executive Function and School Readiness

Understanding Self-Regulation in Early Childhood

Analyzing self-regulation difficulties in preschool through a developmental, behavioral, and school psychological lens.

Early Childhood Executive Function School Psychology Case-Based Application

Lesson Overview

Learning Objectives

Upon completing this lesson, learners will be able to:

Differentiate self-regulation, executive functioning, and social-emotional competencies in preschool children.
Analyze how inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility contribute to classroom behavior.
Identify developmental, environmental, and instructional contributors to self-regulation difficulties.
Interpret preschool behavioral observations without prematurely attributing difficulties to a disability.
Select developmentally appropriate interventions that strengthen self-regulation through structured games, scaffolding, and supportive interactions.

Required Reading

Reading Assignment

Source: Institute of Education Sciences, What Works Clearinghouse (2022). Preparing Young Children for School.

Assigned pages: 16–19
Recommendation 2: Strengthen children's executive function skills using specific games and activities.

Open the complete IES practice guide (PDF) ↗

What to Focus on While Reading

Page 16: Study Figure 2.1 and distinguish executive function skills from social-emotional skills. Pay particular attention to their overlap in self-control and self-regulation. Review the moderate evidence rating for Recommendation 2.
Page 17: Examine the rationale for intentionally designed games. Identify how directions, cue-response relationships, and turn-taking place demands on children's developing cognitive skills.
Page 18: Compare the executive function demands of Red Light, Purple Light; the Freeze Game; Drumbeats; and Which Way? Brain Builder. Note the role of predictable routines and reflection.
Page 19: Review the resources for selecting activities and the guidance on increasing complexity once children have mastered initial rules.

School Psychology Reading Lens As you read, consider how a child's difficulty participating in these activities might reflect a mismatch between task demands and developing skills. What additional data would be necessary before interpreting that difficulty as evidence of a disorder?

Foundational Concepts

1. What Is Self-Regulation?

Self-regulation refers to the developing capacity to manage attention, emotions, physiological arousal, and behavior in ways that support participation in everyday activities. During early childhood, regulation is highly dependent on maturation, experience, environmental predictability, and adult support.

A preschool child may demonstrate regulation during one activity but struggle in another. For example, a child may remain engaged for an extended period while constructing with blocks yet have difficulty waiting for a turn during a large-group discussion. These differences do not necessarily represent inconsistency or willful noncompliance. The activities impose different cognitive, emotional, and behavioral demands.

The IES guide describes executive function and social-emotional skills as related but distinct. Executive function supports the control and coordination of cognitive processes, while social-emotional skills support relationships, emotional understanding, cooperation, and problem-solving. Self-regulation emerges through their interaction.

Executive Function

Supports attention, remembering instructions, following rules, shifting between demands, and inhibiting an immediate response.

Social-Emotional Competence

Supports identifying emotions, managing social interactions, cooperating, and resolving conflicts.

Behavioral Regulation

Includes waiting, following agreed-upon rules, persisting, and adjusting behavior in response to classroom expectations.

Emotional Regulation

Includes identifying emotional states, accessing support, recovering after frustration, and using increasingly independent coping strategies.

Professional Practice: Regulation Is Contextual During evaluation, school psychologists should consider the interaction among the child's developing capacities, the immediate task, adult scaffolding, and environmental demands. A single observation should not be treated as a stable measure of self-regulatory ability.

Cognitive Mechanisms

2. Executive Function Processes Underlying Regulation

Inhibitory Control

Inhibitory control allows children to suppress a highly available or immediately rewarding response. In preschool classrooms, this skill contributes to waiting for a turn, stopping movement when instructed, remaining with a group, and delaying an immediate action.

A child who continues moving after a stop signal may not yet be able to inhibit the ongoing motor response reliably. The psychologist should consider whether the child understood the cue, was attending, could process the signal quickly enough, and had adequate opportunities to practice.

Working Memory

Working memory supports holding information in mind while using it. Following a multistep classroom direction requires a child to remember what was said, preserve the order of actions, and complete each component while distractions are present.

A preschooler who completes the first step but forgets the second may be experiencing a working memory demand rather than deliberately ignoring instructions. Reducing verbal load, demonstrating actions, and providing visual reminders can help clarify the source of the difficulty.

Cognitive Flexibility

Cognitive flexibility enables children to adjust behavior when rules or circumstances change. It supports transitioning between activities, modifying strategies after mistakes, adopting another person's perspective, and responding to changes in classroom routines.

For example, a child may easily follow a familiar rule in a movement game yet continue using that rule after the teacher changes it. This difficulty may be informative about shifting demands, especially when the child demonstrates adequate understanding of both rules separately.

Evidence-to-Practice Connection Recommendation 2 uses intentionally designed games to create repeated opportunities for children to remember directions, respond to cues, inhibit actions, and adapt to changing demands. The guide reports moderate evidence supporting the recommendation. This supports purposeful instruction, not the use of any single game as a diagnostic instrument.

Developmental Interpretation

3. Understanding Preschool Self-Regulation Difficulties

Preschool development is characterized by substantial variability in regulation. Children often require adult assistance to organize behavior, manage frustration, recover from disappointment, and participate successfully in group activities.

Regulation should therefore be examined as an emerging capability rather than a binary skill that is either present or absent.

Co-Regulation and the Development of Independence

Co-regulation occurs when a supportive adult helps a child manage an emotional or behavioral demand. This may include modeling calm behavior, labeling emotions, reducing competing demands, giving clear prompts, or helping the child rehearse an alternative response.

Adult support should be responsive to the child's needs and gradually adjusted as skills develop. For example, a teacher might initially demonstrate each action in a movement game, later provide only a visual cue, and eventually ask children to respond independently.

Assessment Caution: Avoid Premature Pathologizing Difficulty waiting, transitioning, or managing frustration is not sufficient by itself to establish ADHD, autism, an emotional disability, or another condition. Developmental history, functional impact, instructional opportunity, contextual variation, and multiple sources of evidence are necessary for meaningful interpretation.

Environmental and Instructional Influences

A child's observed regulation may change with the length and complexity of instructions, classroom noise, predictability of routines, language accessibility, sensory demands, peer interactions, task difficulty, physical comfort, and the availability of adult support.

A child learning in an additional language, for example, may struggle with a lengthy verbal direction while successfully following an equivalent demonstrated task. This distinction is important when interpreting observed difficulties.

Observation	Possible Interpretation	Follow-Up Assessment
Does not stop when signaled	Inhibitory control, attention, or cue recognition	Compare performance with modeled, visual, and verbal cues
Completes only one part of a direction	Working memory, receptive language, or attention	Vary direction length and visual supports
Becomes upset when rules change	Flexibility, emotional coping, or unpredictability	Observe with advance warning and guided practice
Struggles during group activities	High stimulation, waiting demands, or insufficient engagement	Compare small-group and large-group participation
Requires repeated adult reminders	Emerging independent regulation or unclear expectations	Examine responsiveness to graduated prompting

School Psychology Assessment

4. A Functional Approach to Assessment

School psychologists can improve the interpretation of self-regulation concerns by examining when difficulties occur, what demands precede them, what skills are required, and which supports improve participation.

Step 1: Define Observable Behavior

Replace broad descriptions such as "poor self-regulation" with directly observable behaviors. For example, document whether a child begins an action before the teacher finishes a direction, leaves a designated activity area, or requires repeated prompts during transitions.

Step 2: Identify Task Demands

Determine whether the situation requires inhibition, memory, flexible responding, emotional coping, language comprehension, or several processes simultaneously.

Step 3: Examine Antecedents and Consequences

Record the conditions preceding the behavior and the responses that follow it. Consider whether difficulties are associated with waiting, uncertainty, task complexity, difficult interactions, limited access to preferred activities, or other meaningful environmental events.

Step 4: Compare Supported and Unsupported Performance

Observe how behavior changes when the teacher models a response, reduces instructions, provides visual supports, introduces a predictable routine, or offers additional practice.

Step 5: Integrate Multiple Sources of Information

Combine classroom observations, caregiver and teacher reports, developmental history, language considerations, relevant assessment results, and response to instruction.

Practical Assessment Principle Improvement when task demands are reduced or supports are added provides useful information about instructional accessibility. It does not, on its own, identify a specific underlying disability or rule one out.

Evidence-Based Instruction

5. Building Regulation Through Intentional Games

Recommendation 2 emphasizes intentionally designed games that create opportunities to practice executive functioning in engaging, developmentally appropriate contexts.

The guide recommends repeated game practice across the week. Game sessions typically last approximately 10–20 minutes, including introduction and reflection, and should begin with rules matched to children's current skills.

Examples From the Assigned Reading

Red Light, Purple Light

Children perform different actions in response to designated visual signals. The activity offers opportunities to practice attention, rule retention, and response inhibition.

The Freeze Game

Children move with music and stop when the music ends. Teachers can adapt pace and movement demands to support impulse control and attention.

Drumbeats

Children adjust movements to changes in drumming and stop when the sound stops, combining listening, flexible responding, and inhibition.

Which Way? Brain Builder

Children follow arm movements or directional cues. The activity supports attention to changing information and accurate responding.

Instructional Scaffolding

Introduce: Explain and model one simple, developmentally appropriate rule.
Practice: Provide repeated opportunities with clear cues and supportive feedback.
Stabilize: Maintain the initial level until children respond successfully and consistently.
Increase challenge: Add or modify rules after the existing demands are mastered.
Reflect: Discuss successful strategies and connect the skill to classroom activities.

Implementation Point The objective is not to make activities continually harder. Teachers should increase complexity only when children demonstrate adequate mastery and remain engaged. When performance deteriorates, return to a more accessible level and provide additional practice.

Interactive Activity 1 • Case Analysis

Analyze Self-Regulation Difficulties in Preschool

Examine the following case and make decisions about assessment and intervention. Choose the most defensible response to each question.

Case: Mateo, Age 4 Years, 5 Months

Mateo attends an inclusive preschool classroom. His teacher reports that he frequently calls out, continues moving after stop signals, and becomes distressed when classroom activities change.

During an observation, Mateo follows a one-step movement direction when the teacher models it. He frequently omits the second action when two verbal directions are delivered together.

During a familiar game, he follows the original rules accurately. When the teacher introduces a new rule without demonstration, Mateo continues using the previous rule and becomes upset after several corrections.

His caregiver reports that Mateo participates successfully in familiar routines at home but needs extra support when plans change.

1. Which interpretation is most appropriate?

The behavior provides sufficient evidence that Mateo has ADHD. Mateo may have difficulty managing working memory and flexibility demands; further contextual assessment is needed. Because he performs well at home, classroom concerns can be dismissed.

2. What should the psychologist recommend as an initial assessment strategy?

Administer one standardized rating scale and make a diagnostic determination. Remove Mateo from all group activities until he demonstrates independent control. Compare performance across task demands, document antecedents, and observe responses to modeling and visual supports.

3. Which instructional approach best aligns with Recommendation 2?

Teach the game with simple rules, demonstrate responses, practice repeatedly, and gradually increase complexity. Increase game difficulty immediately to force rapid adaptation. Avoid games requiring executive function until all regulation concerns disappear.

Intervention Planning

6. Matching Supports to Regulatory Demands

Effective preschool intervention should target the underlying demands associated with difficulty while preserving access to meaningful learning. A child experiencing working memory demands may benefit from shorter directions and visual cues. A child experiencing flexibility demands may benefit from advance preparation and guided opportunities to practice changing rules.

The psychologist should collaborate with educators to identify supports that can be incorporated into ordinary classroom instruction instead of relying exclusively on isolated remedial exercises.

Example: Graduated Instruction A class practicing a freeze game can begin with a single stop-and-go rule. Once children demonstrate consistent success, the teacher can introduce an additional cue or action. Children who require more support can receive modeling, reduced rule complexity, and additional guided practice.

Outcome monitoring should examine meaningful classroom participation, not merely whether a child can complete an adult-directed game. Relevant indicators include successful transitions, independent responding to directions, recovery after frustration, and engagement in learning activities.

Interactive Activity 2 • Intervention Matching

Select the Most Appropriate Support

For each preschool observation, match the concern with the most appropriate initial instructional support. Focus on the skill demands and the least intrusive reasonable instructional adjustment.

Situation A: Difficulty stopping movement

A child understands the movement game but often continues moving after the stop signal.

Select an intervention:

Situation B: Forgetting the second direction

A child follows the first classroom instruction but frequently omits the second step.

Select an intervention:

Situation C: Distress after rules change

A child follows familiar rules successfully but becomes upset when rules are changed.

Select an intervention:

Situation D: Difficulty in a noisy group

A child follows classroom routines in a small quiet group but becomes overwhelmed during a crowded, highly stimulating group activity.

Select an intervention:

Integrating Assessment and Intervention

7. Implications for School Psychology Practice

Self-regulation concerns should be conceptualized within a developmental and ecological framework. The school psychologist's role is not simply to determine whether a child meets behavioral expectations, but to understand the conditions under which successful participation occurs.

Assessment findings can guide intervention when they identify specific barriers to participation. For example, task analysis may reveal that a child's difficulties emerge primarily when multiple instructions are delivered at once. Instruction can then be modified while the child receives purposeful opportunities to develop greater independence.

Evidence, Generalization, and Progress Monitoring The WWC recommendation supports intentional executive function games, but improvement within a practiced game should not be assumed to transfer automatically to all classroom situations. Psychologists should monitor both game performance and meaningful functional outcomes across routines.

Suggested Progress-Monitoring Indicators

Percentage of opportunities in which the child follows an age-appropriate direction.
Frequency or percentage of successful responses to stop signals.
Level of adult prompting required during transitions.
Successful responses when familiar activity rules change.
Time needed to return to an activity after frustration, interpreted in context.
Participation across different classroom settings and instructional formats.

Progress data should be reviewed alongside information about support levels, changing task demands, opportunities to practice, and the child's overall classroom experience. An increase in task difficulty can temporarily reduce performance even while skills develop.

Equity and Accessibility Consideration Regulation expectations should be evaluated for developmental appropriateness and cultural, linguistic, disability-related, and individual differences. Children may express engagement and self-regulation in different ways. Supports should facilitate meaningful participation without requiring unnecessary conformity to a single behavioral style.

Lesson Summary

Key Takeaways

Self-regulation reflects the interaction of executive functioning, emotional development, social competencies, and environmental demands.
Preschool behavioral difficulties should be analyzed in relation to developmental expectations, task demands, and available adult supports.
Inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility provide useful frameworks for understanding distinct behavioral patterns.
Intentional games offer developmentally appropriate opportunities for children to practice executive function skills.
School psychologists should prioritize contextual assessment, intervention planning, and monitoring of functional participation rather than drawing diagnostic conclusions from isolated observations.

Apply It to Your Practice

Consider a preschool child referred for difficulty following directions, waiting, or transitioning.

How would you distinguish between a lagging executive function skill, a mismatch between instructional demands and developmental readiness, and a broader concern requiring evaluation?

Identify one observation strategy, one instructional modification, and one measurable outcome you would use to evaluate the effectiveness of the support.

Applied Professional Reflection

Analyze Self-Regulation Difficulties in Preschool

Complete the applied reflection below using principles from the assigned reading and instructional content. Focus on assessment reasoning, instructional supports, and the interpretation of behavioral data.

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References

Assigned Resource

Burchinal, M., et al. (2022). Preparing Young Children for School (WWC 2022009). National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Primary assigned reading: Recommendation 2, pp. 16–19.

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