How GoGoBrain Helps Students Thrive in School and Beyond

Help with Executive Functions

Key to Your Child's Success

What separates children who thrive in school from those who struggle to excel? In recent years, researchers and educators have focused one factor that contributes to school success: executive function skills. In brief, executive function skills are “high order thinking patterns”[i] that we all use to successfully navigate our world.

Like many of the abilities children acquire during the school years, executive function skills can be strengthened through practice. Games can offer a safe, emotionally-neutral environment in which to work on these skills.

That’s the concept behind GoGoBrain, an online platform that strengthens seven critical meta-cognitive and executive function skills: listening, following directions, self-control, focus, working memory and visual-spatial reasoning.

In this article, we’ll explore how GoGoBrain’s interactive games help students build the executive function skills they need to become Super Students who flourish in school.

How Do Executive Function Skills Help Students Thrive in School?

Executive functions are skills everyone uses to organize and act on information, [ii] and children use these abilities to successfully navigate through their school day. Discover more about executive function skills and why your children need them to excel in school.

For example, children with strong executive function skills will find themselves more easily able to manage their time, pay attention in the classroom, remember instructions from their teachers, maintain self-control and focus on the task at hand.

However, weak executive function skills leave children struggling to complete these same tasks, no matter how gifted or bright they may be.

More specifically, these children may struggle with good behavior in the classroom, managing their workspace and making adaptations when their routine unexpectedly changes. They may even fall behind in reading and may experience challenges socially.[iii] [iii-a]

Read more about executive function challenges and how to identify them in your children.

However, the good news is that children can develop these critical skills, setting them up to excel academically.

How Can I Help My Children Strengthen Their Executive Function Skills?

Executive function skills are developed much like any other skill: through practice.

Games can offer your children a low-stress environment to hone their skills. In fact, Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child specifically recommends games to improve executive functions like focus, working memory, cognitive flexibility and more. [iv]

Additionally, a study published by researchers at Penn State and the National University of Tainan, Taiwan recommends an even more specific vehicle to improve these skills. Computer-based games, the study reports, have the potential to improve and facilitate students’ critical thinking and higher-level cognition.[v]

On the basis of similar research—and experience working with 650,000+ students to successfully prepare for critical school tests—our educational team developed the GoGoBrain online platform. GoGoBrain targets seven vital skills that create effective learners and successful scholars, including both cognitive and executive function skills.

How Do GoGoBrain’s Interactive Games Target Executive Function Skills?

GoGoBrain offers a whole galaxy of games for your children to explore, while helping them develop the following executive function skills:

Impulse control – Helps your child think before acting.

GoGoBrain asks your children to choose a planet to play in, helping them develop the skill to pause, think and make appropriate choices.
Each planet in the galaxy offers a game with different directions to follow in order to earn Space Gems, reinforcing the benefits of following directions and controlling impulses.
Hocus Pocus Attention and Focus deliberately attempts to distract your child during gameplay to improve your child’s ability to resist these outside distractions.
Self-Control Black Hole offers fast-paced play that requires attention, patience and fast action to help hone your child’s impulse control.

Emotional control – Helps your child keep feelings in check.

As they play, if your children get an answer wrong, they’ll get corrective, yet encouraging feedback from our friendly alien characters to practice responding to varied feedback in a safe environment.
When your children reach higher levels of game play, they will be offered increasingly difficult challenges, testing their emotional control when presented with difficult tasks.

Flexible thinking – Allows your child to adjust to the unexpected.

As your children navigate between games, they’ll develop adaptive thinking as they switch between tasks and react to each game’s activities.
Listening Launch asks your child to quickly adjust to instructions from a friendly Space Baby, developing the ability to respond flexibly to new scenarios.
Thinking Universe displays continually changing puzzles, strengthening your children’s ability to modify their thinking patterns quickly.

Working memory – Helps your child keep key information in mind.

Flying Following Directions gives your children a continually rotating set of instructions, sharpening their ability to remember information and apply it.
Listening Launch requires your children to take specific actions based on what they hear and remember, developing their ability to hold information in their minds.
Milky Way Memory asks your child to remember what Space Babies belong to which ships, strengthening memory skills.

Self-monitoring – Allows your child to evaluate progress.

Feedback from friendly Space Babies after each answer help your child practice responding to positive and negative interaction in a friendly, playful environment.
Your children receive Space Gem rewards after each level to hone their self-evaluation skills.

Planning and prioritizing – Help your child decide on a goal and a plan to meet it.

Your children can use the Space Gems they win to choose prizes, engaging their skills in saving and choosing the prize they want the most.

Task initiation – Helps your child take action and get started.

Game play and activities are entirely driven by your children, helping them practice starting activities on their own.
Deciding when to exchange Space Gems for prizes gives your child the chance to develop autonomy.

Organization – Lets your child keep track of things physically and mentally.[vi]

GoGoBrain asks your children to manage the items they purchase by storing them in a rocket ship or their backpack, encouraging them to practice their organizational skills.
Your children also are responsible for managing their balance of Space Gems, allowing them to rehearse the adult organizational skill of managing money.

And because GoGoBrain feels like fun and games to your child, they’ll have a blast in the GoGoBrain universe while they develop these vital skills. Plus, with eight different game planets to choose from, each with multiple levels of play, GoGoBrain will keep them entertained for hours.

Help Your Children Build the Skills Behind School Success

As a parent, you want to help your children develop the skills to thrive. By giving them access to tools like GoGoBrain, you’ll position them to shine in the classroom with the executive function skills they need to succeed. You’ll also set the stage for a positive attitude toward school and a lifetime love of learning.

GoGoBrain can help your child strengthen their skills in as little as 15-30 minutes per day. While your children play, they’ll develop the Super Student skills they need to perform at their peak. They’ll focus more easily, retain more of what they learn, develop new thinking patterns and more—empowering them to perform to their highest potential in the classroom, on any tests they encounter and beyond.

To discover how GoGoBrain can help your children become Super Students who thrive in the classroom and beyond, visit http://GoGoBrain.com.