Blocking our brain: How we can avoid repetitive mistakes!

Brault Foisy, L.-M., Ahr, E., Masson, S., Borst, G., & Houdé, O. (2015). Blocking our brain: How we can avoid repetitive mistakes! Frontiers for Young Minds, 3(17), 1-9. doi:10.3389/frym.2015.00017

ABSTRACT. Persistent mistakes at schools are dif cult for teachers, parents, and most of all the children to deal with. Children who keep making the same mistakes tend to be viewed as bad students, but here we propose a different point of view! We think that children often make mistakes not because they do not know the correct answer, but because they fail to block a quicker but wrong answer that seems to make sense. Studies of the brain actually revealed that children, as well as adults, use an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex to inhibit persistent mistakes. Learning to inhibit these mistakes is thus a promising way to help children overcome dif culties at school as well as to help us think more logically as we face problems in everyday life.