Executive Function: A Quick Look

What You Should Know About Executive Function:

"Executive Function" is a term used to describe a set of mental processes that helps us connect past experience with present action. Executive function allows us to:

• Make plans
• Keep track of time
• Keep track of more than one thing at once
• Meaningfully include past knowledge in discussions
• Engage in group dynamics
• Evaluate ideas
• Reflect on our work
• Change our minds and make mid-course and corrections while thinking, reading and writing
• Finish work on time
• Ask for help
• Wait to speak until we're called on
• Week more information when we need it.

There is no single test or even battery of tests that identifies all of the different features of executive function. However, educators, psychologists, speech-language pathologists and others use an assortment of tests to identify problems.

Warning signs: A Student May Have Problems With Executive Function When He or She:

• Has difficulty planning projects
• Has trouble comprehending how much time a project will take to complete
• Has difficulty with story-telling (verbally or in writing); struggles to communicate details in an organized, sequential manner
• Has difficulty with the mental strategies involved in memorization and retrieving information from memory
• Has trouble initiating activities or tasks, or generating ideas independently
• Has difficulty retaining information while doing something with it; e.g., remembering a phone number while dialing.

The brain continues to mature and develop connections well into adulthood, and a person's executive function abilities are shaped by both physical changes in the brain and by life experiences, in the classroom and in the world at large. Early attention to developing efficient skills in this area can be very helpful, and as a rule, direct instruction, frequent reassurance and explicit feedback are strongly recommended.

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Reprinted with permission from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, Inc. All rights reserved.