I’ve gotten requests from my School of Clinical Leadership members for resources that can be share with families and other professionals; and since coaching and training others is such an important part of effective executive functioning intervention, I decided to compile a list of content I’ve created on this topic. All of these things on…
Category: Executive Functioning
The best perspective-taking lesson plan is not actually a lesson plan
Recently in some clinical discussion groups, I’ve seen therapists asking for lesson plans to build perspective taking and situational awareness. This makes me feel optimistic, because it shows that they understand that social skills issues are related to executive functioning. But “activities” for improving perspective taking will not come from a set of materials you…
K-12 Professional Learning: It’s about what adults need, not just the kids.
One of the most common questions I get from clinicians who work with school-age kids is about scope and sequence of therapy. “How do I make time to address all these skills my students need?” “How can I help students generalize skills from one setting to another?” “How can I help the other people on…
Executive functioning is more than just being organized.
Most K-12 teams think they’re working on executive functioning with their students, but they’re still seeing students continue to struggle with: Time-management Self-regulation Social skills Keeping track of work Following directions in class Managing personal belongings That’s because executive functioning support in the school systems often consists of planners and organizers. While organization is one…
Anxiety and executive dysfunction often go together. Here’s why.
Many children continue to experience anxiety about new situations or avoid challenging tasks, despite going to therapy and talking through their feelings. This is often because the intervention is not adequately supporting students’ executive functioning skills. In this video, I explain why anxiety and executive dysfunction go hand-in-hand, and what’s often missing when anxiety persists…
Most social skills groups result in poor generalization. Here’s why.
The most common complaint I hear from K-12 therapists relating to social skills is that kids don’t generalize what they learn in therapy to the real world. That’s because most therapy sessions are done in an “academic format”, and social interactions aren’t “academic”. Human interactions in an unstructured environment requires an essential set of cognitive…
Behavior charts don’t build internal motivation. Here’s what does.
Many K-12 professionals see behaviors considered to be defiant or lazy, even though classroom management systems are in place. That’s because behavior charts don’t support students’ executive functioning, and they’re often too abstract to help motivate kids through discomfort or learning curves. They also don’t support important skills such as time-perception, episodic memory, future pacing,…
What does it mean to be neurodiversity-affirming?
I often get the question, “How can I be evidence-based AND neurodiversity-affirming?” The two things aren’t opposed to each other if we support the right skills. In this video, I share a clip from my free training and define what it actually means to be neurodiversity-affirming. It does NOT mean that we have to agree…
Why don’t timers improve my students’ time-management skills?
When kids have a poor sense of time, the common response is to give them a planner or some kind of a timer. While these tools may be a part of your strategy, they don’t address time-blindness. Time-blindness is a hallmark characteristic of executive functioning issues, and external devices (especially if they’re digital) don’t teach…
Why aren’t checklists and planners helping my students be more organized?
Some students continue to miss assignments and struggle to keep up with the pace in class despite being given organizing tools. This is because they’re experiencing executive dysfunction. While organizers and planners can help some of us stay on top of our work, they don’t actually teach the internal mental processes needed to complete multi-step…