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. An executive functions difficulty can impair a person’s ability to organize themselves and control their behavior.

Difficulties in executive functions are normally experienced in the context of a disorder like ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder etc. however it does not mean that they cannot occur on their own in fact a lot of children are presenting with these difficulties in this era more than ever.

Mental control skills that fall under executive functions:

1. Inhibition – The ability to stop one’s own behavior at the appropriate time, including stopping actions and thoughts. The flip side of inhibition is impulsivity; if you have weak ability to stop yourself from acting on your impulses, then you are impulsive.
2. Shift – The ability to move thinking processes freely from one situation to another and to think flexibly in order to respond appropriately to the situation.

3. Emotional Control / regulation – The ability to modulate emotional responses by bringing rational thought to bear on feelings.

4. Initiation / self-motivation – The ability to begin a task or activity and to independently generate ideas, responses, or problem-solving strategies.

5. Working memory – The capacity to hold information in mind for the purpose of completing a task. Difficulties in this area results in poor memory, poor retrieval of information and poor retention of information

1. Planning / Organization / problem solving – The ability to manage current and future- oriented task demands.
2. Organization of Materials – The ability to impose order on work, play, and storage spaces.
3. Self-Monitoring – The ability to monitor one’s own performance and to measure it against some standard of what is needed or expected.

The executive functions are a diverse, but related and overlapping, set of skills. A child can have problems in one or some of the domains, so it is important to look at which executive skills are problematic and to what degree so that the right interventions and accommodations can be put in place.

Children presenting with executive function difficulties commonly struggle to analyze, plan, organize, schedule, focus, and complete tasks — or meet deadlines. They misplace papers, reports, and other school materials.

Symptoms of Executive Dysfunction at Home

To determine if your child is having executive function difficulties at home, look for the following identifiers:

•  If you have to sit with your child all the time to get homework done and if you just tell them to go do it by themselves, it is either not completed or they haven’t even started.
•  When you ask your child to go do something for example to get you something upstairs, you check up on them they are busy with something else and they have even forgotten what you asked them to do. They get highly distracted and forgets what they are supposed to do next.
•  If you ask your child to wait while you finish something before they can tell you something important (the ability to hold a thought – which is the function of the working memory), but by the time you ask them in a few minutes, they have forgotten what they wanted to say almost all the time (that’s a sign of poor working memory).
•  If you ask your child to re-tell a story you just told, she has a hard time and skips key details.
•  Your child has difficulty keeping in mind all the elements required to participate in a team sportor struggles with following multiple instructions.Symptoms of Executive Dysfunction at School

Many children with Executive function difficulties struggle at school because of impairments in working memory. The following signs may be a result of these difficulties:

•  A child daydreams regularly in class – appears to be distant and has to be constantly re-directed to tasks.
•  The teacher has sent several notes home that your child does not finish classwork.
•  A child avoids engagement in tasks and engages in maladaptive behavior to escape demand for example moving around and being playful, disturbing others in class etc.
•  Child fails or struggles to give a recollection of school activities in the classroom but can tell you other things with no connection to class activities almost always.
•  A child’s school bag is always a mess and they even struggle to find anything in there – (applicable to older children).
•  If the teacher or a friend helps give structure to a task only then can a child finish it (over-dependency on facilitation).
•  Child regularly forget to bring home the materials and books they need to do their homework.
•  A child has difficulty remembering all the steps required to solve a multi-step math or wordproblem. Also has problems understanding roles in multi-part organizations, like sports teams.
•  Difficulty estimating how long a task will take and mostly takes too long to finish tasks resulting inmost class activities not being finished.
•  Difficulty keeping track of belongings that is books, pencils, erasers, clothes etc.
•  Trouble listening to and following instructions in class.
•  Constantly moving on to another task before one is finished because they cannot exert the necessary attention needed to complete a task.

Early interventions

•  Behavior modification programs – examples are using the token system to motivate behavior, social stories to teach what is expected and acceptable in different situations, modeLling behavior so a child learns how to respond or act or what is expected.
•  Daily report cards to keep track of tasks and progress are helpful for educators and parents to better assist children.
•  Special accommodations at school, a teacher may try seating a child near the front of the classroom, splitting assignments into small pieces, giving frequent breaks can help supplement problem areas and give the executive system a chance to recharge.
•  Add rewards and privileges at home if the child does well at school.
•  Focus first on the positives before the negatives. Encourage the things the child is doing well with external reinforcement and then bring in mild forms of discipline if necessary, like taking away points or privileges.
•  Be more structured and systematic by implementing checklists, planners, and timers to help children with tasks.
•  For children with Executive function difficulties, it’s important not to just focus on teaching newinformation, but also on teaching the skills they need to better use the knowledge they have. For example, put time into helping redesign the environment to help children remember what they need to be doing. Compensate for working memory deficits by making information visible, using notes cards, signs, sticky notes, lists, journals — anything. Once a child can see the information right in front of them, it’ll be easier to jog their executive functions and help them build their working memory.

•  Make time external by using clocks, timers, computers, counters, and other devices that track time intervals for younger children.
•  Put the problem in their hands. Making problems as physical as possible — like using jelly beans or colored blocks to teach simple adding and subtracting, or utilizing word magnets to work on sentence structure —using visuals help children having executive function difficulties reconcile their verbal and non-verbal working memories, and in the process they are able to create mnemonics (mental short cuts) that makes the tasks easier to tackle.
•  Self-regulation and executive functions come in limited quantities. They can be depleted very quickly when a child works too hard over too short a time. Give a child a chance to refuel by encouraging frequent breaks during tasks that stress the executive system. Breaks can help a child get the fuel they need to tackle an assignment without getting distracted and losing track – breaks can also work as motivation to focus and finish a task so make the breaks more desirable by including games, escape to a favourite activity etc. depending on the child’s age.
•  Physical exercise has tons of well-known benefits — including giving a boost to a child’sexecutive functioning. Routine physical exercise throughout the week can help refuel them and help them cope better. Exercise can be found anywhere — playing in the park, karate, ball games etc.

The key to an intervention that works is changing their environment to make up for the deficits in executive functions internally – and making it more external. So it’s important that the people in their lives especially parents and educators show compassion, patience and willingness to help them learn and making accomodations. When a child messes up, as frustrating as it may be try to understand what went wrong and how you can help them learn.

Talent Adamson Behaviour Therapist

BA (Health and Social Services) Applied Psychology

BA Hon (HSS) Psychological Counselling – (UNISA)