Fiabe Motorie® Insight · Scientific collaboration and research references.
Adele Diamond is an internationally recognised researcher in developmental cognitive neuroscience and one of the major references in the study of executive functions. Her work provides an important theoretical framework for understanding the relationship between movement, attention, working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility.
Fiabe Motorie® historical documentation records a scientific dialogue with Adele Diamond beginning in 2017, focused on the role of executive functions within movement-based educational activities. In a 2020 article, Marco Bettoni also described her contribution to reviewing the cognitive aims of tools developed within the project.
Executive functions help children keep a goal in mind, resist an impulsive response, change strategy when circumstances change and organise behaviour. These skills are constantly used in everyday situations: waiting for a turn, remembering a rule, switching tasks and coordinating with peers.
Fiabe Motorie® uses movement as a concrete environment in which these demands can be experienced rather than simply explained.
In Fiabe Motorie® institutional materials for 2026, Adele Diamond is still listed within the project’s scientific and technological ecosystem, with reference to the University of British Columbia and her work on executive functions.
The value of this dialogue lies in asking better questions about practice: what is a game really training? Is the cognitive demand appropriate for the child’s age? Can the child maintain a motor task while also managing a rule or piece of information? This is where research and educational practice meet.
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