Evaluating the Impact of a Targeted Approach Designed to Build Executive Function Skills: A Randomized Trial of Brain Games.

This paper reports results from an impact study of Brain Games (BGs), a classroom-based intervention designed to build preschool and school-aged children's executive functions (EFs) and related self-regulation skills. The study employed a classroom-randomized, experimental design with 626 students in 36 pre-K through fourth grade classrooms in charter schools in a mid-sized urban district. In one set of models with child covariates, children in intervention classrooms showed marginal positive impacts on regulation-related behaviors, attention control and impulsivity, and negative effects on global EF and marginal increases in discipline problems. A second set of models with a smaller sample and both child and classroom covariates included indicate positive impacts of BGs on global EFs, prosocial behavior, and attention control and impulsivity. There were no significant impacts on the teacher-student relationship as reported by the teacher or on direct assessments of inhibitory control, short term and working memory, or another measure of global EF in either set of models. These promising findings offer a signal that implementation of targeted, easy to implement intervention approaches in classroom contexts can influence children's regulation-related and prosocial outcomes, but this signal should be investigated further with larger and more tightly controlled designs.

From recovery to regulation: an attempt to reconceptualize 'recovery from work'.

The concept of 'recovery' (from work) has quickly gained in importance in the occupational health literature. However, we think that the conceptualization of 'recovery' needs some more attention. Although many authors acknowledge that 'recovery' refers to a 'process', the concept is often treated as a static construct. In this paper, we argue that recovery should be conceptualized as a dynamic construct related to changes in psychophysiological state of the person. We refer to two main theories that have provided a theoretical framework for research in this area: Meijman & Mulder's Effort-Recovery (E-R) model and Hobfoll's Conservation of Resources theory. In particular, the E-R model has been seminal in this area and stresses the element of changing psychophysiological states that has been used for reconceptualising 'recovery'. Various biological rhythms influence these changing psychophysiological states, and thus the level of energy (or effort) a person can mobilize or wants to mobilize. A distinction is made between 'physical fatigue' and 'mental fatigue' and its consequences for recovery. The discrepancy between 'actual state' and 'required state' has been suggested as the basis for 'recovery'. This emphasises that recovery is a dynamic and ongoing process, which also included motivational aspects, in particular as far as mental work is concerned. The capacity to maintain self-regulation of one's psychophysiological state is important in this respect. Thus, we propose that 'recovery' is the continuous process of harmonizing the 'actual state' with the state that is 'required' at that moment.