Executive Functioning Skills:  What Are You Talking About?

The term Executive Functioning Skills (EF skills) comes from the neurosciences literature, and refers to the brain-based skills that are required for humans to execute, or perform, tasks. Executive function deficit is not a medical diagnosis or an education disability category. These skills are real and necessary for optimum performance of tasks, and deficits in any of these skill areas make success in school and work difficult. There is no exact cause of executive functioning difficulties, but there are a higher number of issues among children who have at least one parent with the same type of difficulty. Researchers have determined that EF is controlled mostly in the frontal lobe, but other parts of the brain can be involved. The brains of persons with EF deficits are different in the area of the deficit from others with good EF.

Students do not grow out of having executive function skill deficits. Fortunately, executive functions continue to develop into young adulthood, and teaching methods for improving these skills are available and more are being developed all the time. Different researchers call the various EF skills by different names, but the skill areas are consistent. Students with LD, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders are more likely to exhibit executive function deficits. Deficits in EF are not connected in any way to intelligence.

In their book Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, Dawson & Guare list these skills in order of their developmental emergence:

• Response inhibition; controlling impulses; and self-monitoring
• Working memory
• Emotional control, including social control
• Sustained attention and focusing
• Task initiation
• Planning / prioritization
• Sequencing / organization
• Time management
• Goal-directed persistence
• Flexibility
• Metacognition

 

Dawson & Guare note that EF skills fall into two dimensions: thinking and doing. The eleven skills they identify in the list above fall into the two dimensions like this:

Thinking (cognition)                                                            Doing (behavior)

Working memory                                                                 Response inhibition

Planning / prioritization                                                      Emotional control

Sequencing / organization                                                 Sustained attention

Time management                                                               Task initiation

Metacognition                                                                      Goal-directed persistence

Flexibility

Drs. Strosnider and Sharpe of Frostburg State University in Maryland identify five EF skills areas for basic skill development. They have had success teaching EF skills in their clinic setting. In their opinion, working memory is the most important EF skill, and deficits in this area need to be addressed first. The other four skill areas they address are Prioritizing, organizing, sequencing, managing time and planning; Attending, focusing, initiating; Controlling social/emotional behaviors, impulses, and self-monitoring; and Communicating and transitioning. They feel that it’s important to identify EF deficits in early childhood and begin immediately teaching strategies at that age.

 

Resources

Branstetter, R. (2014). Everything Parent’s Guide to Children with Executive Functioning Disorder (The). Avon, MA:
Adams Media Publisher. www.everything.com

Cooper-Kahn, J. & Foster, M. (2013). Boosting Executive Skills in the Classroom: A Practical Guide for Educators.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Dalgliesh, C. (2013). Sensory Child Gets Organized (The): Proven Systems for Rigid, Anxious, or Distracted Kids. New
York, NY: Simon & Schuster. www.simonandschuster.com

Dawson, P. & Guare, R. (2010). Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, 2^nd Edition. New York, NY: Guilford
Press.  www.guilford.com

Dawson P. & Guare, R. (2009). Smart But Scattered: The Revolutionary “Executive Skills” Approach to Helping Kids
Reach Their Potential. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.  www.guilford.com

Dorminy, K.P., Luscre, D., and Gast, D.L. Teaching organizational skills to children with high functioning autism
and Asperger’s syndrome. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 2009, 44(4), 538-550.

Guare, R., Dawson, P. & Guare, C. (2013). Smart But Scattered Teens: The “Executive Skills” Program for Helping
Teens Reach Their Potential. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.  www.guilford.com

Hansen, S. (2013). Executive Functioning Workbook for Teens (The): Help for Unprepared, Late & Scattered Teens.
Oakland, CA: Instant Help Books, an Imprint of New Harbinger Publications, Inc. www.newharbinger.com

Improving Executive Function Skills – An Innovative Strategy that May Enhance Learning for All Children. Retrieved
from CEC Today online newsletter, Summer 2008. http://www.cec.sped.org

Executive Function Around the Clock, National Center for Learning Disabilities,
http://www.ncld.org/content/view/865/391/

Kaufman, C. (2010). Executive Function in the Classroom: Practical Strategies for Improving Performance and
Enhancing Skills for all Students. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company.

©Project ACCESS – May 2016 – Susan Hawkins