Executive functioning skills are those brain capacities that oversee the regulation of emotion, memory, and impulse control. Many of the difficulties children experience in school can be linked to a weakness in one or more of these areas. These skills are called executive functioning because the activity occurs in the frontal lobe of the brain. Individuals with executive functioning difficulties will have impairments in one or more of these areas. Mental health issues can interfere with executive functioning, as well.
Working memory allows us to hold information in our memory while performing complex tasks to use past learning and apply that information to a new situation.These skills include problem-solving, making a plan, and following through with a plan.
Impulse control refers to managing responses to events. This includes thinking before acting, keeping one’s thoughts to oneself, and awareness of others.
Emotional regulation includes managing thoughts, feelings, and moods. Individuals with challenges in the area of emotional regulation have difficulty recognizing and responding appropriately to their own emotions.
Executive Function is comprised of these three domains together. See the diagram to better understand what impairments look like in each area. As you can see, the domains overlap. Individuals with impairments in multiple domains will struggle more with self-management tasks than other individuals.
Peg Dawson, PhD and R. Guare in their book (Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary “Executive Skills” Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential. NewYork: Guilford Press, 2009) identify seven steps to teaching executive skills.
Identify the problem
- Set a goal
- Outline the steps
- Whenever possible, turn the steps into a list, checklist, or short list of rules to be followed
- Supervise the child following the steps
- Observe the child when they perform each step
- Praise the child when he/she successfully performs each step
Keep the goal small at first and build from there. Once you’ve mastered one area, move onto the next.
Breaking goals into smaller chunks and mapping the steps to achieving success allow individuals to experience a sense of mastery that encourages further development of executive skills.
Janet Myers
