Corter – self regulation

Starting with self-regulation, we’re discovering more and more about how it develops right from the period of pregnancy all the way into adulthood, and how early experience help shape self-regulatory capacities throughout the lifespan. So self-regulation means a number of different things in the literature. People talk about self-regulated learners when we’re looking at school age children but we know it’s something that begins well before that. So it’s actually learning to manage yourself along a number of dimensions including emotional, behavioural, cognitive and learning, and social interactions, so it’s really a whole collection of self-management skills. Their core cognitive abilities around being able to focus attention and shift attention. Having working memory that allows you to keep things in mind and being able to inhibit both your thoughts and your actions appropriately. But we sometimes think about it as being a self-control that means dampening down. However it also includes the ability to activate and mobilize energy to do things that you need to do. So it’s a very important set of skills that have a lifelong course.