Executive Function Activities for 6- to 18-month-olds These activities encourage infants to focus attention, use working memory, and practice basic self-control skills. During this stage of development, infants are actively developing their core executive function and self-regulation (EF/SR) skills. Supportive, responsive interactions with adults are the foundation for the healthy development of these skills. However, particular activities can strengthen key components of EF/SR. In using these activities, adults should attend to the infant's interests and select activities that are enjoyable, while also allowing the infant to determine how long to play. Lap games for younger infants Generations of families have engaged babies in games while holding them in the lap. Differ- ent games practice different skills, but all are predictable and include some basic rules that guide adult and child behavior. Repetition helps infants remember and manage their own behavior to fit the game's rules. Peekaboo - Hide-and-find games like this exercise working memory, because they chal- lenge the baby to remember who is hiding, and they also practice basic self-control skills as, in some variations, the baby waits for the adult to reveal him or herself. In other versions, the baby controls the timing of the reveal; this pro- vides important practice regulating the tension around an expected surprise. Trot, Trot to Boston; This is the Way the Farmer Rides; Pat-a-Cake - Predictable rhymes that end with a stimulating yet ex- pected surprise are well-loved. Infants exercise working memory as they develop familiarity with the rhyme and practice anticipating a surprise, inhibiting their anticipatory reactions while managing high levels of stimulation. Hiding games Hiding games are a great way to challenge working memory. Hide a toy under a cloth and encourage the infant to look for it. Once infants can find the toy quickly, hide it, show the child that you have moved it, and encourage the child to find it. Make more moves to increase the challenge. As the child remembers what was there and mentally tracks the move, he or she exercises working memory. Older infants may enjoy hiding themselves and listening to you search loudly for them while they track your location mentally. You can also hide an object without showing an older infant where it is and then allow the infant to search for it. He or she will practice keeping track of searched locations. Another challenging version of these games involves putting a set of cups on a turntable (or "lazy Susan"), hiding an object under a cup, then spinning the turntable. Hiding more than one object can also increase the challenge. developingchild.harvard.edu Center on the Developing Child HARVARD UNIVERSITY 2 Imitation or copying games Infants love to copy adults. When they imi- tate, they have to keep track of your actions, remember them, wait their turn, and then recall what you did. In doing so, they practice atten- tion, working memory, and self-control. These games have a variety of forms, from taking turns making simple gestures (e.g., waving) to organizing toys in certain ways and asking children to copy you (e.g., placing toy animals in a barnyard) or building simple build- ings by putting one block on top of another and perhaps knocking them down to rebuild. As infants' skills improve, make the patterns they copy more complicated. Adults can also demonstrate ways to play with toys, like making a toy horse gallop or rocking a baby doll. This introduces the con- cept of using toys as symbols for real objects. EXECUTIVE FUNCTION ACTIVITIES FOR 6- TO 18-MONTH-OLDS Simple role play activity in mind to complete it while avoiding Older children in this age range enjoy doing the distractions and inhibiting the impulse to do tasks they see you do. Take turns with any activity that interests the child, such as sweeping the floor, picking up toys, dusting, etc. These games introduce the basics of imaginary play and practice working memory, self-control, and selective attention, because the toddler must hold the other things. Children can remember and play out more complicated roles as they get older. They will also begin to initiate activities. Providing the necessary materials (e.g., a broom, a toy box, a dustcloth) can help children enjoy and sustain this type of play. Fingerplays Songs or chants with simple hand motions are a lot of fun for infants, and develop self-control and working memory as well as language. Infants can learn to copy the movements to a song and, with practice, will remember the se- quence. Eensy Weensy Spider; Where is Thumb- kin?; and Open, Shut Them are examples, but these fingerplays can be found in many languages and cultures. Conversations Simply talking with an infant is a wonderful way to build attention, working memory, and self-control. With younger infants, start by following the infant's attention and naming aloud the things holding his or her attention. The infant will likely maintain his or her attention a little longer, practicing actively focusing and sustain- ing attention. As infants get older, pointing out and talking about interesting objects or events can help them learn to focus their attention on something the adult has identified. As babies learn language, they also develop their memory of what is said, eventually mapping words to objects and actions. Conversations in any language besides English are also helpful. It has been found that bilingual children of many ages have better executive function skills than monolingual children, so experience using an additional language is an important skill Resources Songs and games www.piercecountylibrary.org/files/library/wigglesticklesall.pdf www.turben.com/media-library/8702756 infanttoddlerplaybook.pdf www.zerotothree.org/child-development/grandparents/play-0-12-mths-final.pdf developingchild.harvard.edu Center on the Developing Child HARVARD UNIVERSITY 3