What Is Executive Function? How It Affects Learning & How to Support It

Hi, and welcome back! We’re so grateful that you’re joining us as we explore the various ways learning differences can impact a student’s reading. Today, we’re going to explore both executive function and how our executive functioning skills can impact our learning, especially reading. So! With that, that’s jump in…

What is Executive Functioning

Executive function, sometimes just referred to as “EF”, is how our brain manages, essentially, us. It is our brain’s internal system that helps us to plan, focus, remember, and self-regulate.

As you can imagine, these are quite important skills. What makes executive functioning skills so complex, though, is the fact that they don’t fully develop until we’re in our mid-20s, and they can be impacted by neurodiversity, trauma, hunger, sleep, stress, and more. To complicate matters further, these skills can fluctuate day-to-day (or really even hour-by-hour).

(In other words, when you have a kiddo, your job becomes to essentially act as their executive functioning manager. The complexity increases when we have children who also are neurodivergent.)

When we look more deeply at the skills and cognitive components that go towards executive function, it can start to feel complex, but don’t worry! We can break it down together. Here are three components of executive function that are helpful to understand more deeply:

Working Memory:

What is it? Working memory is, very simply, the brain's ability to hold onto information over short periods of time.

So what does this mean? It’s the mental sticky note! Working memory is what we need to help us remember instructions, keep track of tasks, and follow directions.

Cognitive Flexibility:

What is it? This is the brain’s ability to adapt and shift when we see new information.

So what does this mean? It’s how we adjust to changing demands and perspectives, consider different viewpoints, and handle unexpected changes. It’s important for our ability to problem solve, be creative, and it impacts our social skills.

Inhibitory Control:

What is it? This is the brain’s ability to pause and think before reacting.

So what does this mean? This helps us stop ourselves from immediately reacting. It’s our ability to pause, consider, and be thoughtful in our responses. (This one is, admittedly, not easy.)

It’s also important to note that EF is a set of related processes rather than a single system. This list also includes planning/organization, initiation, and self-monitoring.

How Executive Function Affects Learning

EF really plays a huge role in learning. It impacts how well a kiddo can focus in the classroom, organize their assignments, and influences how they plan, start, and complete assignments.

It’s important to remember that this is an ever-developing skill for our students, but it’s one that needs both nurtured and guided. To complicate matters, there are a ton of factors that influence and interact with our students’ EF skills. Things like genetics, brain development, nutrition, sleep, and physical activity all can influence and impact how these skills function.

(Think about how hard it is to plan when you lost sleep and skipped breakfast! Those are your EF skills taking the hit!) To, yet again, complicate matters, there are certain neurodiversities like ADHD and autism that impact the interplay of all of these factors, too.

All of that to say, we need strong EF skills to more easily succeed in school. Strong EF lays the foundation for both academic success and emotional well-being – this is because our kids are more focused, organized, and on top of ever-changing requirements of school (and life) when they have robustly growing EF skills. When our students have under-developed EF skills, everything about the classroom suddenly becomes more complex.

Signs of Executive Function Challenges

It’s important to know that not everyone with EF challenges will be impacted the same way, and not everyone will experience the same challenges every day. These skills are constantly impacted by our internal, external, and mental environment!

When it comes to our students who have EF challenges, we may see:

1. Have difficulty following multi-step instructions

• These difficulties aren’t always consistent either. Sometimes a student may forget the first part of the direction, other times they may start immediately and not remember the final portions of the task or assignment.

2. Struggling with organization

• This goes for both mentally organizing a class project or assignment and keeping their materials organized

3. Difficulty starting tasks (task initiation) without a lot of support

• Just getting started can be overwhelming for a lot of students. This can be because they’re questioning where to start, but it could also be they simply can’t recognize how to break a task down into smaller parts, and it, essentially paralyzes them.

4. Difficulty prioritizing tasks and being unsure which portions are most important

• This can look like spending a very large amount of time on a small portion of a project, but failing to address a critical component

5. Problems sustaining attention and maintaining focus on both teaching, assignments, or chores

• When we have struggling EF skills, the little internal voice that whispers, “spppttt, pay attention again!” Can be very quiet or, perhaps, non-existent! These kiddos sometimes don’t even realize that they’ve drifted off.

6. Making impulsive or seemingly careless decisions

• Let’s do it, and let’s do it now. This can be related to thrill-seeking behavior, or it can be immediately starting a task without actually hearing all the required information (and therefore doing the task… wrong.)

7. Trouble keeping track of and managing their time

• Example: The kiddo who thinks it’ll take them just 5 minutes to go from playing Minecraft in their pajamas, to eating breakfast, to getting dressed, to gathering their supplies, to being buckled in the car, complete with all necessary items.

Ways to Support at Home

First off, it’s incredibly important to remember that EF skills are constantly, yet seemingly slowly, developing over time. Oftentimes we expect kids to have much higher EF skills than is developmentally appropriate.

That being said, when we have kids who are struggling with EF – whether it’s because they’re simply a kid, or because it’s more complex due to a neurodiversity, there are things we can do to help. At home, we can support our students by:

• Creating (and then following!!) routines

  1. Knowing what to expect and when (repeatedly) can help our kids stay on a better track

• Use visual reminders and checklists

  1. Here’s an example: Connect a dry-erase checklist to a backpack that shows them what they need: e.g., green folder, homework folder, lunch box, water bottle, coat

  2. They can check off the items as they load their backpack up the night before and (in theory) reduce the frantic search in the morning

  3. *Remember – these skills are constantly developing, and they need to be explicitly taught and nurtured

• Break tasks into smaller steps

  1. Unfortunately, just saying, “clean your room,” leaves a lot of room for creative interpretation or evasiveness.

  2. Instead, be specific:

     • Put your dirty clothes in the hamper

     • Put your toys in the boxes inside your closet

     • Make your bed

     • Vacuum the floor

At home, we can support our students by:

1. Chunking/scaffolding their assignment

• This means breaking the assignment down into more digestible pieces (much like how we specifically walk them through the room cleaning example!)
• Provide and teach (I can’t overstate how important the teaching part is) them how to use organizational tools
• This can be explicitly teaching them how to use an assignment tracker (and then checking in that they’re using it repeatedly), so much so that you think you’re overdoing it. You’re not.
• This can also be color-coded folders to book covers, so that they know which goes with which

2. Offer regular feedback and check-ins

3. Root them on!

• EF skills are hard, and these kids are aware they’re likely struggling more than others. Cheer them on!

When to Seek Professional Help

This is a straightforward answer, but it’s the truth: It depends. If you have already done everything mentioned above, but it isn’t making a dent, it may be time to seek professional help.

We know that kids will struggle in general, but if it feels like it’s impacting your everyday life on top of theirs, then connecting with your pediatrician for a referral may be worthwhile.

Sometimes it may be an undiagnosed neurodiversity like ADHD or autism. Other times it could be unrecognized sensory needs that an Occupational Therapist could address. Talking to your doctor about what you're seeing and the impact it’s having on both your child’s life and self-esteem is always a good place to start!

Conclusion

We hope this blog has helped you to better understand how important executive function skills are, as well as better understand what to look for if your student may be struggling.

Creating routines and modeling external ways you keep yourself on track and organized as an adult is a great thing to model! When our kids can see us using our EF skills, it can help foster the growth of theirs! Schedule a consultation today!