Could Defects in Executive Functioning Be Hurting Your Child’s Success in School?
Being an elementary or secondary student these days is a tough job. You have to be to school on time, usually at an early hour of the morning, manage numerous classes and subjects every day, do your homework on time and cope with the stress of tests, papers, and everyday social interaction with fellow students. It is at least as stressful as having a full-time job.
Student success requires organization. You need to make sure you bring the right materials each day, turn in assignments on time, plan ahead and budget your time effectively to take into account any additional lessons or extracurricular activities. Add to this complexity, the high academic demands of today’s school environment and it is no surprise that many children struggle to keep up with it all!
Every student has some basic struggles with motivation, including studying, procrastinating and going to bed on time. But some students struggle more than others, taking hours to complete assignments or forgetting to turn in homework that has been completed. Other struggles these children may face include:
1. Easily distracted. Loses track of what they are supposed to be doing.
2. Inappropriate behavior even when the child knows how they are “supposed” to behave.
3. Cognitive rigidity. Easily stressed by any changes to established routines or new social situations. Frustrated when other kids don’t follow the rules.
4. Struggles to pay attention and follow directions; makes “careless” mistakes.
5. Difficulty setting personal limits. Does not realize when fatigued; needs help figuring out how best to manage stress.
6. Takes a long time transitioning to bedtime/rest.
7. “Reacts to failure with decreased effort, avoidance and declarations that they ‘don’t care.’”
8. Reading and writing difficulties.
— Extracts from Late, Lost and Unprepared: A Parents’ Guide to Helping Children with Executive Functioning by clinical psychologists Joyce Cooper-Kahn, Ph.D. and Laurie Dietzel, Ph.D.
Often, these students have diagnosed conditions like AD/HD or learning disabilities, but sometimes their troubles are undefined and described as failures in “executive functioning.”
Late, Lost and Unprepared: A Parents’ Guide to Helping Children with Executive Functioning by clinical psychologists Joyce Cooper-Kahn, Ph.D. and Laurie Dietzel, Ph.D. defines executive functioning as:
The executive functions are a set of processes that all have to do with managing oneself and one’s resources in order to achieve a goal. It is an umbrella term for the neurologically-based skills involving mental control and self-regulation.
Within the context of the school environment, Cooper-Kahn and Dietzel identify 8 cognitive functions in “executive functioning” that affect student success:
1. Inhibition (the ability to exercise impulse control, such as raising your hand and waiting your turn to speak, etc.)
2. Shift (adapting to changing situations)
3. Emotional Control
4. Initiation (getting started on a task, i.e. avoiding procrastination)
5. Working Memory
6. Planning/Organization
7. Organization of Materials
8. Self-Monitoring (follow-through and completion of tasks)
It can take until your early 30’s for the areas of the brain responsible for executive functioning to fully mature and some people may never fully develop these functions. If you are looking at this list and are thinking you still struggle as an adult with these functions, you probably do!
It is important to remember that executive functioning is not necessarily related to intelligence and it is possible to be a very intelligent person with weak executive functioning. I would be willing to wager that everyone struggles with at least one aspect of executive functioning on an ongoing basis.
As I read Cooper-Kahn and Dietzel’s book, I have to confess that I am still a bit confused as to exactly when a defect in executive functioning is a diagnosable problem! So many of the situations described in the book sounded like “normal” kid reactions, such as being too excited, forgetting, lacking enthusiasm for homework or assignments, etc. Likewise, much of the advice offered for these problems sounded like typical mom advice, like “If you want any help from me on your homework you must ask me before 9 p.m.” I wasn’t exactly turned on by this advice and it was the sort of mundane, repetitive advice that really irritated me as a child.
After thinking about this for a while, I realized that these defects in executive functioning aren’t necessarily problematic in all areas of a child’s life but can be very problematic in the typical school environment. When you have a classroom of 30 children to teach, it is hard to get anything accomplished if every single child can’t sit still, listen, remember, do their work on time and get along with their peers. Most schools and most parents don’t have the resources to tailor educational offerings to the needs of each child so the child must tailor his/her behavior to what is being offered. It is really quite amazing when you think about it that most children can adapt to what is expected and that the schools function as well as they do!
Therefore, I conceive of Cooper-Kahn and Dietzel’s book as more of a survival guide for the public (or private) school system. If you don’t have the option to change the type of education your child receives, then both parents and children need to adjust their routines and behaviors to match what the school system requires. When the balance does not seem to be working, the authors offer many suggestions based on the type of executive functioning defect present. Some of these suggestions include:
Solutions for People with Executive Functioning Defects
1. Lower the bar – avoid situations where the expectations are too high for your abilities (ex. change schools, switch to lower-level classes).2. Cut back on extracurricular activities to alleviate stress/time pressures.
3. Develop habits and routines for everyday activities.
4. Have psychological testing done. There are many advantages to private testing but it is expensive and often not covered by insurance. Most public schools will provide educational psychological testing free of charge.
5. Obtain evaluation and treatment for other psychological disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders, OCD, depression and bipolar disorder
6. Enforce tighter limits and closer supervision for children with weak impulse control who may be susceptible to substance abuse and other risky behaviors.
— Extracts from Late, Lost and Unprepared: A Parents’ Guide to Helping Children with Executive Functioning by clinical psychologists Joyce Cooper-Kahn, Ph.D. and Laurie Dietzel, Ph.D.
I was, of course, particularly interested in the chapters related to helping children with organization. The ideas the authors put forward were not necessarily novel but certainly are part of any sound organizational strategy. Below are some of their suggestions and my own comments on how I would work to implement them with children.
Organizational Tools to Help with Executive Functioning in Kids
1. Calendars – I find calendaring a challenge even as an adult. I finally learned that I needed to write every appointment down twice—once in my digital calendar and once on my paper calendar to have the information available in the formats I needed it in to process the information. For a child, you may need to do the same thing and keep the calendar in more than one place or in more than one format. For example, the child may need a large multi-month wall calendar to understand how long the semester/term/school year is and a small planner the child can take to school to mark down daily or weekly assignments.
2. Daily schedule – If you have a predictable routine in your household and your child struggles to remember what the routine is, making a list of to do items may be helpful. For example, a list of things to do to get ready in the morning, after school chores, etc. If there is something essential that just has to get done every day, such as feeding pets, taking medicines, you may also want to formalize this in a daily schedule. Some people use wall-mounted charts with stickers or dry-erase markers. This was an interesting idea to create a Job Jar, by writing the individual tasks on popsicle sticks and transfer the sticks to a “done” area when complete.
3. Visual time aids – Time is something that is difficult to keep in your head. For a child who cannot tell time or make relationships such as “30 minutes until the bus comes,” using a visual time aid, like an hourglass, may be helpful. However, a child who struggles with time management is going to need a lot more help than just a colored clock and may need more intensive personal coaching from the parent.
4. Chore cards and checklists. If your child likes firm direction or forgets what needs to be done on routine chores, listing the individual steps to complete a task on an index card or a checklist can be helpful. For example, you could list the steps needed to clean a room, proofread a homework assignment, etc.
5. Note taking. I know many people who struggle with note taking even as adults. I have always been a good note taker. I don’t attribute this to any intellectual gift but rather as a coping skill to help me focus when listening to others in classes or meetings. Some people can just listen and remember and find that taking notes distracts them from the listening process. I have to take notes or my mind wanders or I forget. When I was in the seventh grade, a teacher arranged for an outside consultant to come to our class to demonstrate a new note-taking method where you used “summary” paper to write down notes from class on the left hand column of the paper. You left the right column blank until your designated review time where you would write questions about the material. You could then use your notes like flashcards to review the material by covering up the left hand side of the page and trying to answer the questions on the right side. After junior high, I don’t remember using this method but it might have helped me if I did!
6. Visual organizers/clustering. I was surprised to see the authors mention “visual organizers” so frequently in the text. When I was in school, this was called clustering and was primarily a technique that was taught in creative writing classes to help you organize your writing, such as main idea, topic sentence and supporting ideas. The authors suggest you could use this with a child with executive functioning to help the child understand simple planning like the steps in throwing a party for a friend. If you have no idea what a visual organizer or cluster looks like, an example illustrating the points in this blog post is below.
Overall, this book is a good starting point if you are concerned your child may have a serious problem with executive functioning. It may not answer every question that you have or provide all the solutions you are looking for but there is a list of references and resources as well to consult for further research.
Do you or your child struggle with executive functioning? Is the problem worse in the school setting? Please share in the comments.