Lizard Brain vs. Wizard Brain: Evidence-Based Executive Function Strategies to Manage Self-Regulation Over a Lifespan
A healthy prefrontal system acts more like a cool wizard rather than the brain that is highjacked by the limbic system which acts more like a crazy reactive lizard brain. This wizard brain enables individuals to readjust behaviors, reassess the social context, reappraise the emotional and affective states, and redirect responses to produce favorable outcomes for self and for others. In this workshop, Sucheta will discuss self-regulation, social-emotional competence, and an effective M-E-T-A™ (Mindful Examination of Thinking and Awareness) intervention approach designed to enhance Executive Function including goal-directed planning, strategic thinking, and future-forward thinking. The session will present effective and evidence-based strategies to help manage executive dysfunction and emotional dysregulation in children and adults with cognitive-communication disorders in a variety of contexts. Finally, this presentation will help clinicians dive deep into the interplay between one’s own EF skills and of those that we coach, teach, or manage.
About Sucheta Kamath, CEO & Founder, ExQ:
Sucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, and a tech-entrepreneur who has created ExQ®; a 100% digital, patented and cloud-based curriculum for middle and high school students designed to assess, personalize, and build Executive Function skills through games, error analysis, and metacognitive lessons. Sucheta has also built an ExQ Teacher Academy with in-depth training and expansive resources for K-12 educators. She is the host of the Full PreFrontal®: Exposing the Mysteries of Executive Function; where her invited guests range from neuroscientists, researchers, educators, SLPs, sociologists, anthropologists, journalists, and even business leaders.
For more than 13 years, Sucheta has had a daily contemplative practice and is currently working on completing the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program with a focus on DEI with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.
Finally, Sucheta is deeply committed to volunteerism and while serving on many boards she prioritizes her work through the lens of Race, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. For the past four years, she has founded and currently runs (along with her GSHA colleagues) GSHA Gives!, a free communication and Executive Function job-readiness training program for previously homeless, incarcerated, and disenfranchised men returning to building a meaningful life in the inner-city Atlanta.
In her spare time, Sucheta loves to read, cook and travel the world with her husband and their two sons.
