Assistance with Other Executive Functioning Skills

Breaking Long Projects into Steps

Long projects such as report writing that require a student to complete several steps and have a far-off due date are often hard for students with executive functioning problems. They tend to procrastinate or spend too much time on one part of the project and underestimate or not leave enough time for others. Providing aids that serve as a task analysis for different steps of the project and appropriate time allotments for each step is helpful in these cases. By simply breaking down the task into steps and preplanning each step, students are often able to see the big picture. For an example, see the structure given to a middle school project on biomes at the end of this chapter.

Waiting to Be Called On

An important classroom executive functioning skill for all students is raising their hand and waiting to be called on. When we taught smaller classes for students with challenging behaviors, it seemed sort of nitpicky to require students to raise their hands when we had only a group of two. However, general education teachers put shouting out in classrooms high on their list of undesired behaviors, and understandably so. Twenty-six students all shouting out at once in a classroom, for example, would be chaotic. So even in small groups of two, we taught this skill in order to prepare the students for a typical classroom environment.

Waiting to be called on seems simple enough, but this can be a difficult skill for students with executive functioning difficulties to master. These students must decide if and when they need help or would like to share something. They must control the impulse to shout out, and then wait to be called on if their teacher is busy.

Staying on Task

We typically recommend using an intervention called ''chart moves'' as a self-monitoring system during independent work time for students who have difficulty remaining on task. We first came across the chart moves intervention in the book The Tough Kid Toolbox by William R. Jensen, Ginger Rhode, and H. Kenton Reavis, which provides several examples that can be photocopied. This resource also provides many other behavior interventions that we find extremely helpful.

Students choose a picture of a reinforcer they would like to earn or of a special interest to increase motivation to use the system. A random cuing system such as a beep tape or MotivAider is used. Table 7.1 provides a description and ordering information for three commercially available cuing systems. When the cuing system goes off, the student selfmonitors whether he is on task (after having been directly taught this skill, of course). If he is, he connects a dot. When he connects to a bigger dot, he earns a small or quick reinforcer such as a short break. And when he connects all the dots around the chart, he earns a larger reinforcer. This same system could be used for an entire class during independent work time if you do not want to single out one student as this intervention can certainly benefit many students in a classroom. See Figure 7.12 for a sample analysis of staying on task; see Figure 7.13 for a sample chart moves.

Key Points to Remember

• People count on their executive functioning skills every day to plan, set goals, and self-regulate their behavior. Difficulty with executive functioning can lead to many of the problems that students with challenging behavior commonly exhibit.
• Visual supports are one way of improving and supporting communication and executive functioning tasks as they clarify verbal information and are quickly and easily interpreted.
• Organizational problems are common for students who have difficulty with executive functioning tasks. Templates, checklists, and planners can assist with this deficit.
• Behavior prompts, visual schedules, and transition helpers are tools to aid students with executive functioning deficits.
• Executive functioning deficits affect students' success on long-term projects, waiting to be called on, and staying on task. Preventive interventions can help.

Discussion Questions

1. Your student Kyle exhibits difficulties with executive functioning. He attends general education classes with behavioral support. How would you work with a teacher who resists making modifications and accommodations for Kyle because, she says, he is perfectly capable and is simply lazy?
2. Brittany is your student who has difficulty starting assignments, keeping track of them, and getting them in on time. What are some supports you could put in place to help her with these problems?