Executive Function: Above & Beyond the Frontal Cortex – Lorelei Woerner- Eisner & George McCloskey
Sought after occupational therapist and international lecturer, Lorelei Woerner-Eisner OTR/L, C-IAYT, RYT500 shares her 20 plus years of experience, continuing education, and therapeutic techniques, as well as her integrative perspective on wellness. This convenient online course brings fresh integrative research-based and clinically proven techniques to enhance initiation, engagement, attending behavior and memory, as well as processing and self-monitoring.
Explore integrative tools you can use with challenges such as: the kid who scores well on tests but performs poorly in school, who is distracted and impulsive, who lacks motivation or is hindered by anxiety.
Expand your principles of yoga, mindfulness, breath and the gut in developing: flexible thinking, memory, planning, organization, impulse control, emotional regulation, attending behavior, task initiation and habit building
Strategies to cultivate motivation, efficacy, carry over and decrease fear, anxiety, and resistance
Modify sensory input to increase alertness or facilitate calming
Lorelei walks you step-by-step through Executive Function beginning with the foundational elements of brain function, effects of the gut and sensory input, as well as stress and fear. Then she will show you how to apply that into integrative treatments while learning and experiencing specific strategies that will make a real difference in children’s lives.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to explore integrative and cutting-edge techniques that you can use the very next day!
Enhancing Executive Function:
Going Beyond the Prefrontal Cortex
Broaden your view of executive function and increase your effectiveness as a therapist.
Principles of Executive Function Levels of the Whole Person
Physical – movement, posture and anatomy
Breath and physiological systems
Intellect – cognition, self-expression and sensory
Personality – preferences, values and behaviors
Emotional tone and the subjective
Brain development & autonomic nervous system (ANS)
Pruning and the use it or lose it principle
Vagus nerve’s relation to physical and emotional effects
Effects of Stress on EF
Effect on neural networks
Cortisol and fight/flight effect on the brain
Differences between fear and anxiety
Getting to the basis of anger and frustration
The Gut Brain
Enteric nervous system: the “second brain”
Neurotransmitters in the gut that affect mood
ADHD-gut connection
Enhance mood and memory through nutrition
Sensory Processing
3 developmental levels of regulation
Swings effect on the Reticular Activating System
Adjustments in sensory input to create balance
Calm the sympathetic nervous system thru sensory input
Strategies to Develop Healthy Habits
Using your mind to change your brain
Power of thought and visualization
Routines and steps to build habits
Enhancing neurogenesis and neuroplasticity
Yoga, Mindfulness and Meditation Principles
Mind-body-breath connection
Yoga poses for self-regulation
Interoception to build deeper self-awareness
Power of the pause
Breath and Regulation Techniques
Using breath to affect arousal levels
Increasing and decreasing heart rate and blood pressure
Supports movement and posture
Techniques for focus, delayed gratification and processing in the pause
Sensory Processing Strategies
Using the sensory systems to promote self-regulation and calm the sympathetic nervous system
Looking at rhythmicity and touch as factors in enhancing EF
Attention-Memory Connection
Learning requirements for memory
Emotion-motivation connection
Intrinsic motivation to enhance processing
The driving force of optimism and hope
How multi-tasking is counter-productive
Strategies that support focus and recall
Putting the pause on Impulsivity
Marshmallows: the importance of learning to wait
Anti-rush therapy to promote waiting
Do-overs to teach healthy alternatives
Self-Generation and Self-Determination
Promote delayed gratification, self-monitoring, task initiation, emotional control
Supporting persistence to stick with dull and challenging activities
Allowing time for processing, planning and self-correction
Strategies for Healthy Social Connections:
Using the whole self as a therapeutic tool: emotion, modeling and positioning
The power of relationship in therapeutic effectiveness
Cuing and facilitation to promote participation, engagement and increased independence
Teaching tolerance and awareness
Treatment Strategies for Challenging Emotions
Decreasing stress to facilitate EF
Understanding fear, as the basis for many challenging emotions
Using the teachable-moment “failures”
Improving Executive Functions: Strategies to Rewire the Brain and Change Behavior
Featuring George McCloskey, PhD, International Expert and Best-Selling Author of Assessment and Intervention for Executive Function Difficulties and Essentials of Executive Functions Assessment
Proven Interventions for Children, Adolescents and Adults
Profile your client’s EF strengths and weaknesses to target specific interventions
Promote EF development – strategies for directing, cueing, prompting
Transition strategies from being externally prompted to internally regulated
Tailor interventions that can be used individually or with large groups/classrooms
Teach your clients to be more independent
Drawing on Dr. McCloskey’s clinical expertise and experience, you will develop the skills you need to better assess, grow and improve executive functioning in your clients. With captivating descriptive examples, engaging case illustrations, and proven strategies you can immediately implement, you can help your client change their brain and behavior!
> Please contact our team if you have questions, or broken links via our email [email protected].
