Executive Function Skills part 2
[From: Executive Dysfunction at Home and at School, Smart but Scattered (2020), by Peg Dawson, Ed.D., NCSP, PESI Inc. Workshop]
These executive function skills develop until approximately 25 years of age (more slowly when experiencing executive function skill difficulties):
Response inhibitions: The capacity to think before you act. This ability to resist the urge to say or do something allows us the time to evaluate a situation and how our behavior might impact it.
Working Memory: The ability to hold information in memory while performing complex tasks. It incorporates the ability to draw on past learning or experience to apply to the situation at hand or to project into the future.
Emotional Control: The ability to manage emotions in order to achieve goals, complete tasks, or control and direct behavior.
Flexibility: The ability to revise plans in the face of obstacles, setbacks, new information or mistakes. It relates to an adaptability to changing conditions.
Sustained Attention: The capacity to maintain attention to a situation or task in spite of distractibility, fatigue, or boredom.
Task Initiation: The ability to begin projects without undue procrastination, in an efficient or timely fashion.
Organization: The ability to create and maintain systems to keep track of information or materials.
Planning/Prioritizing: The ability to create a roadmap to reach a goal or to complete a task. It also involves being able to make decisions about what's important to focus on and what's not important.
Time Management: The capacity to estimate how much time one has, how to allocate it, and how to stay within time limits and deadlines. It also involves a sense that time is important.
Metacognition: The ability to stand back and take a birds-eye view of oneself in a situation. It is an ability to observe how you problem solve. It also includes self-monitoring and self- evaluative skills (e.g., asking yourself, "How am I doing? or How did I do?”).
Goal-Directed Persistence: The capacity to have a goal, follow through to the completion of the goal and not be put off or distracted by competing interests.
Requires the individual to:
• Generate and hold a mental representation of the goal in mind (working memory).
• Formulate a plan and set of rules to follow (self‐directed speech/inner speech).
• Inhibit and regulate negative affect (i.e., emotional regulation of disappointment and frustration) associated with the self‐deprivation need to complete the goal (giving up of doing preferred interests/activities to complete the goal).
• Initiate self‐motivated or positive drive states (motivation, enthusiasm, excitement) in support of the plan (affect/emotional regulation)
• Think about and/or try out multiple novel approaches to achieve the goal (various ways to reach the goal), before selecting an approach to achieve the goal (planning, problem solving, and flexibility)
From: Executive Dysfunction at Home and at School, Smart but Scattered
(2020), by Peg Dawson, Ed.D., NCSP, PESI Inc. Workshop.Cited References:
Barkley, Russell, A. (2012). Executive Functions: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They Evolved. Guilford Press, NY, NY
Barkley, Russell, A. (2013). ADHD: Executive Functioning, Life Course, and Outcomes Management. Premier Education Solutions.
Barkley, Russell, A. (2013). Taking Charge of ADHD, Third Edition: The Complete, Authoritative Guide for Parents. Guilford Press, NY, NY.
Dawson, P. & Guare, R. (2018). Executive skills in children and adolescents: A practical guide to assessment and intervention. 3rd Edition. New York: The Guilford Press.
Dawson, P. & Guare, R. (2012). Coaching students with executive skills deficits. New York: The Guilford Press.
Dawson, P. & Guare, R. (2009). Smart but scattered: The revolutionary ”executive skills" approach to helping kids reach their potential. New York: The Guilford Press.
Guare, R., Dawson, P., & Guare, C. (2012). Smart but scattered teens. New York: The Guilford Press
