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Math PK-2

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Math PK-2 > Factors > Self-Regulation

Self-Regulation

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Self-regulation skills help students concentrate on learning. Self-regulation is the ability to alter and regulate our emotional and behavioral responses flexibly in order to meet a given goal. Self-regulation is a limited capacity resource meaning that it can become depleted over the course of the task or day, or can become drained when students are spending much of their energy working to focus in the classroom.

Main Idea

Self-regulation includes recognizing behavioral responses and aligning them with standards, such as social expectations. Students who can successfully self-regulate their behaviors accomplish this by flexibly monitoring and inhibiting emotions, attention, motivation, actions, or impulses in pursuit of a goal. It is important to note that the perception of appropriate behavior in schools may be influenced by dominant social norms in a culture and may not match students' own cultural norms, attitudes, and beliefs.

Self-regulation can be broken down into three main components:

  • Cognitive regulation involves using Attention and executive functions (i.e., Working Memory, Inhibition, Cognitive Flexibility) to inhibit impulses and attend to tasks.
  • Behavioral regulation refers to the ability to adjust one's behavior in order to meet the norms of a given context.
  • Emotion regulation (part of the Emotion factor) refers to the ability to manage emotional arousal.

Students with learning disabilities and ADHD often have more difficulty with Self-regulation in certain classroom contexts, which may be due to the additional demands of reading, math, or focusing Attention in the classroom, and may benefit from specific Self-regulation support. Students with weaker Self-regulation skills are at greater risk for low academic achievement and emotional and conduct problems. Students who have been historically excluded and those with disabilities, particularly those with ADHD, are also at greater risk of disciplinary actions such as suspension for what is perceived as disruptive behavior. As a result, educators and students may benefit from culturally-responsive and inclusive training addressing Self-Regulation.

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