Article summary with Self-regulation in preschool and early elementary classrooms: Why it is important and how to promote it by Savina - 2021

What is the role of self-regulation in classroom behavior and learning?

Self-regulation has important implications for classroom behavior. Students with good self-regulation show fewer behavioral problems and positive teacher-student relationships (which propels learning). Self-regulation directly influences learning as it allows students to attend to important information, stay on task, remember instructions, and process necessary information.

Which neurocognitive processes are involved in self-regulation?

• Response inhibition: the suppression of actions that are inappropriate in a given context and interfere with goal-driven behavior.
• Voluntary attention: attention that is deliberately applied and controlled by the individual.
• Working memory: a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily.

What is the role of response inhibition in self-regulation?

Response inhibition creates a delay period during which one can prepare a better response to the environmental demands. Deficits in inhibition are expressed in difficulty waiting, making careless mistakes, interrupting others, and impulsivity. Early inhibition problems fail to support, or even stand in the way of, children´s abilities to develop more skills over time. In school response inhibition is an important skill, for example, children should not run in the hallway, lower their voice, control impulsive behavior, and stop an incorrect response.

What is the role of attention in self-regulation?

Attentional control is very important for learning and the regulation of emotions and behavior. Selectivity is an important feature of attention, as attention does not only allow for selecting important information, but also for ignoring irrelevant information. Children with attention problems are easily distracted, appear disengaged and forgetful, require repeated directions, and make careless errors. They also tend to have less positive relationships with peers, and in combination with negative emotions are at higher risk for behavioral problems.

Which attentional networks can be identified?

Several attentional networks are identified that have differential effects on learning and behavior:

• Alerting network provides a necessary level of arousal and prepares students to learn.
• Orienting network directs attention to a stimulus. Involuntary orienting underlies distractibility and happens when there are strong cues from the environment. Voluntary orienting involves intentional focusing attention on an object or event which is relevant to one´s goals.
• Executive attention allows resolving the conflict between competing stimuli or actions by suppressing activity in areas of the brain which process a competing response.

What is the role of working memory in self-regulation?

Self-regulation is guided by internal representations including goals, rules, and plans. These internal representations are held in working memory. In school, working memory is necessary for following rules and directions, self-monitoring, and error correction. Working memory difficulties are expressed in difficulty following instructions and keeping conversations, forgetting details or procedures, reluctance to respond, and mind wandering.

How can interventions support self-regulation?

Self-regulation skills are responsive to intervention and can be improved. In the classroom, promoting self-regulation can help to increase learning time (by decreasing time spent on student´s problem behaviors) and promote full participation in learning (by students being less dependent on the environment). Self-regulation training should be given throughout the day and progress from less cognitively demanding tasks to tasks that require greater executive control. Interventions that can support self-regulation in early childhood education classroom are organization of the classroom environment, behavioral interventions, and instructional strategies.

How can organization of the classroom environment support self-regulation?

Effective classroom management, together with teacher´s emotional and instructional support, are associated with better self-regulation and academic engagement and less off-task behavior. Consistently enforced rules and routines allows for progression from regulation provided by teachers to self-regulation. Also, environmental distractions, such as noise and visual stimuli, should be managed to prevent interference that can reduce cognitive resources allocated for learning.

Which instructional strategies can promote self-regulation?

Different strategies can be used to promote self-regulation and these strategies can focus on different aspects of self-regulation:

• Strategies to build and actively maintain mental representations. The success of self-regulation depends on the quality of mental representations that guide task performance and behavior, their active maintenance in working memory, and their fidelity. Orienting basis of an action is an externally represented schema that guides students in the execution of their actions. Teachers should also have the goals and rules readily available, repeat them, and minimize irrelevant images and words.
• Strategies to support voluntary attention. Verbal attention coaching includes securing students´ attention before introducing a task and directing children´s attention to important information. Another strategy is On-Task in a Box, an intervention that combines self-monitoring with video modeling.
• Strategies to improve inhibition control. Intentionally inserting a delay can strengthen students´ ability to stop their incorrect behavioral responses. This can be done by using signals or verbal prompts to slow down, or using response cards instead of hand raising. Another strategy is having students reflect on task performance.

Which behavioral self-regulation interventions can promote self-regulation?

Different behavioral self-regulation interventions can be used to foster self-regulation skills in the classroom:

• Movement activities are associated with better motor inhibition, fewer behavioral problems, better behavioral regulation, more mature private speech, improved attention, and improved ability to stay on task.
• Game-based interventions. Movement-based games and cognitive games can improve motor inhibition, academic skills, knowledge of rules of conduct, verbal interference control, and delayed gratification, inhibition control, and working memory.
• Mindfulness requires sustained attention on a target object or activity and disengaging from distracters. It increases connectivity between attentional networks, resulting in more efficient and flexible allocation of attentional resources in the earlier stages of stimulus processing. It can be applied in different ways, such as mindfulness practice, mindful movement, and mindful meditation.