This post presents pertinent information about Executive Functioning, for the attention of parents, teachers and other stakeholders interested in the development of children at any stage in their educational journey.   

What is Executive Function (EF)?

You can view EF as ‘the management system of the brain’ – it is a set of cognitive skills that is crucial for self-control, mental flexibility, and responding appropriately to social situations and stressful situations. Every day, we use these skills to learn, work and manage our daily life. It allows us to set goals, plan and get things done; and it also allows us to follow directions, stay focused, control our emotions and attain our goals (Gilbert & Burgess, 2008).

Experts believe EF is regulated by the frontal lobe of the brain—the prefrontal cortex (Scott & Schoenberg, 2011; Otero & Baker, 2013). Having not fully developed brains, children are born without these skills, but they have the potential to develop them. They are abilities that mature as the brain grows.

EF skills develop quickly in early childhood and the teen years, and they keep developing until well into the mid-20s. When children are young, they might lag behind their peers for some time in their EF development, but they can make good progress over time, significantly reducing their related difficulties and challenges by the time they reach adulthood.

There is a lot of information that is worth sharing about this topic, so I have condensed the key points into lists, in order to keep things as succinct as possible. The first of these concerns are the basic areas of EF and the related terminology:

The Basic Areas of EF

These are:

• Working memory – The ability to keep information in mind and then use it in some way. As we solve problems or perform tasks, we keep several facts or thoughts in our working memory, which is a kind of internal temporary storage system.

• Cognitive flexibility – The capability of switching from one mental task to another or thinking about several things at the same time, sometimes referred to as mental flexibility.

• Inhibitory control – The ability to suppress impulses or desires so that one can engage in more appropriate or beneficial behaviours.

• Attention – The ability to focus thought in order to concentrate on something specific in the environment.

• Cognitive inhibition – The ability to filter out irrelevant information.

Skills related to EF

As a result of these features, EF supports many skills that play a fundamental role in our daily life, including:

• Organising, planning and prioritising
• Staying organised
• Starting tasks and staying focused until completion
• Remembering important details
• Analysing information
• Self-monitoring
• Managing behaviour
• Regulating emotions
• Understanding different perspectives

Struggles in EF

Hence, individuals with EF challenges often lack these skills, and can thus struggle in aspects such as:

• anticipating how long it will take to complete a job
• starting or completing tasks
• planning projects
• time management
• switching between tasks
• coping with the disruption of routines
• remembering the location of belongings
• telling stories (whether verbally or in writing), due to the difficulty in expressing facts and details in an ordered, sequential way
• remembering what they just heard or read
• organising thoughts
• controlling impulsive behaviours

More importantly, since EF can have an effect on the mental strategies used in memorising and retrieving information from memory, many children with EF difficulties struggle with one or more of these areas, which might make learning harder for them. However, this does not always imply that they have a mental health problem or a learning impairment; in fact, a lack in these skills can often be addressed via the development of certain habits that will lead to success in all aspects of life.

Possible Causes of EF Challenges

There’s been a lot of research into what causes challenges in EF. Here are two main factors.

• Differences in brain development – Researchers have looked at EF in the brain and discovered that the regions in charge of working memory and emotional regulation in the brain actually develop more slowly in people who struggle with executive functions, than in those who do not.
• Genes and heredity – People who suffer from EF frequently have family members who do so as well.

Ways to Improve Children’s EF; Implications for Parents and Educators

EF issues can have an impact on children’s lives at home, at school and in general. However, the good news is there are things that you can do to help them to improve their EF skills. For children with deficits, additional support in the classroom or at home may improve their development of EF.

EF support should target the following areas in particular:

The Environment

Related strategies include:

• Breaking up large tasks into small steps;
• Creating checklists for things they need to do;
• Giving them time to transition between activities;
• Making a schedule to help them stay on track;
• Using a calendar to help them remember and plan for long-term activities, tasks, and goals;
• Using visual aids to help them process and understand information; and
• Writing down due dates or important deadlines and putting them in a visible location.

Metacognition

Metacognitive language is another strategy for correcting EF problems. With younger children, articulating the issue may be beneficial; for example, by saying, “I notice you’re missing a workbook. To complete the task, you will need the workbook. Would you be able to find it?” Visually displaying the processes or questions that children may ask themselves in the classroom is also beneficial in encouraging independence with a skill. Children can additionally repeat the instructions or steps to a partner, after which a volunteer could repeat them to the entire class. This procedure takes less than a minute but provides for further auditory processing and repetition for those children who require it.

Time Management 

The use of posting schedules may be an effective strategy for improving time management skills. A classroom timetable lays out the whole day and prepares children for what is to come, while an activity schedule divides a period of time into smaller chunks and specifies how each period will be used and the sequence in which activities will be delivered. These timetables are frequently posted in places where every child in the class may see them throughout the day.

Long-term projects might be especially difficult for pupils who struggle with EF, so one solution is to teach children how to plot out larger tasks and divide them down into smaller, more manageable chunks. In doing so, a calendar should be used to mark smaller benchmark targets and to establish when each smaller task must be completed.

Cognition and Memory

Before introducing new information, allow children to go over what they’ve learned before. This review might be a fast oral presentation, or teachers could pair children up and have them discuss what they recall from the day before.

A mind map or concept map made in small groups might potentially be used for a review. Concept maps are effective graphic organisers for taking notes, comparing and contrasting information, and writing. Because organising thoughts may be as challenging as managing time and resources, graphic organisers might be especially beneficial for children with executive function deficiencies.

Teacher/Parent Interaction

Teacher/Parent behaviour is very significant in assisting children who may have EF deficiencies. Teachers and parents should check in with children on a regular basis if they are recognised to have impairments and should give specific help as required. Furthermore, having a compassionate demeanour and providing positive reinforcement to children who have deficiencies can improve their educational experience. Since stress can impair executive performance, another thing you may do is identify ways to reduce their tension, by searching for stress-relieving activities that work for them.

Refer to the attached for more information on executive functions.

References

Gilbert, S. J. & Burgess, P. W. (2008). Executive Function. Current Biology, Vol. 18(3), pp. 110 – 114.

Otero, T. M. & Baker, L. A. (2013). The Frontal Lobes and Executive Functioning. In S. Goldstein & J. A. Naglieri (Eds.), Handbook of Executive Functioning, pp. 29 – 44. NY: Springer.

Scott, J. G. & Schoenberg, M. R. (2011). Frontal Lobe/Executive Functioning. In M.R. Schoenberg and J.G. Scott (Eds.). The Little Black Book of Neuropsychology: A Syndrome-Based Approach. pp. 219 – 248. NY: Springer Science+Business Media.