In Scholastic Chess vs. Educational Chess, our main message was that the greatest benefits from chess seem to come from its ability to enhance specific executive function cognitive skills. Furthermore, because these very skills are what underlie most analytic thinking, the kids who most need improvement in this area (and whose lives could most benefit from chess) are not likely to spontaneously become the strongest chess players. So in order to have maximum educational impact, educational chess emphasizes using it as a primary tool for executive function skill development in every child. As such, it is critical to maintain a focus on kids across the entire spectrum of chess skills, and not just the ones at the top.
Here’s an overview of the findings from both cognitive and neuroscience studies that has led to this Educational Chess approach.
Impulse control may be the most important of all of the executive function skills in predicting life outcomes.
In recent years, researchers have come to believe that the so-called Executive Function skills – those cognitive thought processes that help the brain organize information and solve problems in a thoughtful and effective fashion – are critical for success in the modern world. Studies strongly suggest that the most important of these executive functions – and the one that is most closely predictive of eventual success in life – is a child’s ability to exercise impulse control at an early age.
Kids with poor impulse control often do worse in life…
Extensive research has now shown that young children who measured at the low end of the impulse control scale often fare far worse as adults than those who were at the top, in every single outcome measured across a wide spectrum of personal, professional, social, marital, financial, and even health measurements.1
Why? Because children who demonstrate high levels of impulse control (also called self-control) appear to possess a behavioral and neurophysiologic infrastructure that lets their brains work in a way that can succeed in the environments required by modern life. As children, this leads to successful performance in school. As adults, this leads to better personal, professional, social and even health outcomes.
Every step up this impulse control scale led to better outcomes in later life vs. the level below.
Additionally, kids who were initially in the lowest groups of impulse control but who then improved over time had better outcomes than others in that original group who did not. This strongly suggests that anything that educators can do to improve impulse control when kids are young may pay huge dividends as they grow into adulthood.
There is a large body of evidence linking low socioeconomic status (SES) to poorer performance in school….
The data shows that Impulse-control ability can vary widely between individual children regardless of what their backgrounds and IQs may be. But another large body of knowledge has established that economic background – specifically Socioeconomic Status (SES) – may also be a critical factor in determining the specifics of a child’s cognitive abilities. (SES refers to the combination of financial, educational and social factors that determines economic standing. Low SES is associated with poverty, and high SES affluence).
It has long been known that children from low SES backgrounds perform below children from high SES backgrounds on tests of intelligence, language proficiency, and academic achievement. In addition, low SES children are more likely to fail courses, be placed in special education, and drop out of school compared to high SES children. SES is therefore also recognized as an important factor in determining life outcomes. But the exact reasons for this have never been proven.
Growing up in low SES environments may actually lead to impaired executive function skills…
There is now objective evidence from sophisticated neurophysiologic studies that shows that growing up in low SES environments – which are often characterized by high levels of stress – may actually lead to measurably different functionality of the prefrontal cortex – the area of the brain that controls executive function skills. If so, then at least part of the reason that low SES children do poorly in school may have to do with the fact that their brain functions are significantly different than high-SES children in the skills that matter the most to educational success – the executive function skills.2 This finding may have huge relevance to the many issues that children from at-risk areas face in schools.
Regardless of how good a player they may become, the most important thing most kids may learn from chess is simply to stop and think before each move…
Given the increasing amount and sophistication of the evidence that executive function skills are often primary determinants of life outcomes, then the use of chess – which is thought to help stimulate the development of many of these very skills, especially impulse control and problem solving – should be a primary educational tool in schools throughout the country. But as we’ve discussed, the successful application of chess in this manner requires more than just having a chess program. The nature of that program – its focus, goals, and the tools it uses to help students develop a solid foundation of chess thinking skills, are all critical in determining the likelihood of success
Our Think Like A King® system was specifically designed to give you exactly the tools you need to achieve these goals.
For those who care to delve into the highly technical details that underlie this science, the following references will be quite helpful:
A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Terrie E. Moffitta, Louise Arseneault, Daniel Belsky, Nigel Dickson, Robert J. Hancox, HonaLee Harrington, Renate Houts, Richie Poulton, Brent W. Roberts, Stephen Ross, Malcolm R. Sears, W. Murray Thomson, and Avshalom Caspia. PNAS | February 15, 2011 | vol. 108 | no. 7 | 2693–2698
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/
10.1073/pnas.1010076108
Socioeconomic Disparities Affect Prefrontal Function in Children Mark M. Kishiyama, W. Thomas Boyce, Amy M. Jimenez, Lee M. Perry, and Robert T. Knight Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 21:6, pp. 1106–1115
