Tag: self-regulation

How to Build Initiation Skills

ADHD, Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning, Processing Speed

Starting a task requires strong initiation skills. Students who struggle to begin their work may have weak executive functioning skills. Initiation of task is a key executive functioning skill and utilizes other executive functioning skills such as planning and organization. Some students who struggle with initiation are overwhelmed by the multiple possible solutions they envision, causing them to get stuck trying to pick which solution is the best; while other students are unclear on the instructions for the task and don’t fully understand what they are supposed to do, preventing them from being able to start the task. Below is an example of parent struggling to help her child with initiation skills.

 

I wonder if you could help me. After various tests my son (7, grade 2) was diagnosed with ADD (inattentive) and anxiety last year. He’s on Ritalin and though it helps a little, he still has major issues at school. One example: yesterday he needed to write 8 sentences with words like in, on, you etc. It took him over an hour to write. He would then first need to figure out which line to use, then where to start and then realize that the word needs to start with a capital (2 – 4 minutes have now passed). By then he needs to be reminded what the sentence is again. His handwriting is poor so he has the tendency to try and fix it (which obviously makes it worse). By the time he’s written the first word, the whole ritual has to start all over again. And if someone says just one word his concentration is completely off and he needs to be reminded from scratch. He has the ability to do everything that is expected, his reading is the best in his class and he remembers what he reads. His math verbally is very good, but when writing, he makes careless mistakes. He also needs a couple of seconds before answering a question, which he will do but when he’s expected to write or come up with his own ideas, his mind is a blank. Do you have any advice or ideas into which we can look further?

I recommend the use of a visual prompt that can be displayed whenever the students go “blank”. We use the STOP, THINK, PLAN, DO prompt.

Using the STOP, THINK, PLAN, DO prompt you can start to build metacognition skills (thinking about thinking) so that your child has something to start with. ADHD (inattentive, hyperactive or combined) can make it harder for students to STOP AND THINK. The key is to stop and think long enough to create a plan that can be broken down into steps. It is then easier for the child to follow the steps without getting lost along the way.

We have had students create stop signs that the teacher can use when the student loses focus and needs to re-engage in the task. For Initiation you may need to write out the steps to follow, in detail, for each activity. Then teach the child to follow the list.

 

Here is an example for a writing assignment: Add steps to the list until every time the student is stuck the next step is on the list ready to guide him.

Done To Do
Get out a pencil
Read the instructions
Ask for help if you do not understand the instructions
Create a mind map to get ideas out
·      What is the main idea
·      What are 3 details about the main idea
Sequence the details: number the items in the order that makes the most sense.
Write the first sentence
Write the second sentence
Write the third sentence, and so on until all the sentences are written.
Re-read what you have written, and look for spelling errors or anything that could be written better.

 

Students will need help to learn the procedure, so prompting will be needed to remind the student to follow the checklist. Gently prompt the student by asking, “What do you do next?” whenever he loses focus or disengages in the task. You can tap the checklist to remind him that the answer is right there waiting for him.

It will take quite a bit of repetition for students to begin to internalize this system. So be patient. I also recommend building flexible thinking skills to help with initiation difficulties. Starting a new task requires analysis and problem solving to figure out the best way to do the task. For some students that is overwhelming. Building flexible thinking skills enables students to become problem solvers and active thinkers which is what is required for initiation of new tasks.

 

In the case of the student above there are more specific intervention that can help.

  • Use wide ruled paper and number the lines.
  • Use a ruler to mark which line he is going to write on.
  • Check with teacher if the student can write half of the sentences and dictate the rest.
  • Have him dictate the sentences and then copy them in his own handwriting.This breaks up the cognitive load by separating the thinking part of the task from the doing (writing) part of the task.
  • Start learning typing skills to decrease the handwriting portion of his work.
  • Consider a program that builds his fine motor skills, like Retrain the Brain, or occupational therapy.
  • Build his cognitive processing speed and attention, a program like Pay Attention!  or PACE: processing and cognitive enhancement program, something that uses a timer or metronome to keep him on pace. Even simply clapping along with music can help.
  • The Think, Talk, Laugh Program is designed to increase Verbal Processing Speed.
  • Build his working memory with a program like Cogmed.

 

Building new skills takes time and patience. A step-by-step approach with constant reinforcement will allow students to develop and grow towards their potential. It is important to pick one aspect to work on at a time so that the child can be successful. Success builds confidence and confidence builds motivation. Motivation and desire to achieve drive students to work hard and learn.

 

 

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“I want to be like him!”

ADHD, Dyslexia, Executive Functioning, Flexible Thinking, Learning differences, Math, Processing Speed, Reading, Visual Processing, Writing

 

Bryce wants to be like his friend who is excellent at soccer, can memorize anything quickly and always has a witty comment to share. So he asked me to explain how his brain works and what he can do to be more like his friend. We discussed his strengths and weaknesses and how they affect his processing of information. In my explanation to Bryce I realized that he is not as worried about his academic levels as he is about his ability to interact with his friends. The same processing difficulties he is having learning new information in the classroom are hindering him in his social interactions.

Helping Bryce process information quickly will make all learning and social interactions easier for him. Once the brain is smoothly processing new input; social interactions along with reading, writing, and math skills will be mastered more easily.

Many students come to the K&M Center with diagnoses of a processing disorder, a developmental delay, dyslexia, processing speed issues, ADHD, executive functioning disorder, dysgraphia, language processing issues, and auditory processing issues. Each diagnosis identifies a difficulty in absorbing new information, effectively storing information and/or retrieving the desired information efficiently. The question changes from, “ How do I teach a child to read?” to “What neuro-pathways need to be developed so this child can read fluently?”

How do we build new neuro-pathways? Memory and learning are related but different and it is important to understand their relationship. Memory is dependent on learning because memory takes learned information and stores it so it can be retrieved at a later time. Learning is dependent on memory because the stored information in memory provides the framework used to create associations and inferences to further learning and strengthen memory.

The Process of Creating New Neuro-pathways:

  • The memory/learning process starts with perception and attention, which cause neurons to fire.
  • Once the neurons fire a trace memory is created and the consolidation or stabilizing of a memory begins.
    • This is considered the encoding or storage of information.
    • During this process synapses increase in strength and number.
  • When a group of neurons frequently fire together they form a pathway and the brain “re-wires” itself rearranging its organization.
    • These neural pathways are what make learning possible.

The brain is designed to process information along the path of least resistance. Pathways that are frequently used become stronger and faster, so information that is learned and practiced allows that information to be retrieved more quickly.

Frequent use of neurons builds quick, strong neural pathways. Educating students with learning disabilities requires finding activities that stimulate the desired neurons to develop new pathways. Finding the right activities for each student is the key to successful learning.

How frequently the pathways need to be stimulated is not clear. Most research indicates that intensive intervention requires 60 hours, with daily sessions.

Bryce has a unique and wonderful brain. In our discussion we talked about how every person has strengths and weaknesses that make them valuable. Bryce wants to learn and he is willing to do the work, therefore his brain will continue to build new neural pathways that will help him in his social interactions. We also discussed that he will most likely never be exactly like his friend and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Learning to accept ourselves, while continuing to improve ourselves is what makes life interesting.

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Executive functioning skills: How To Get Your Child To Follow The Plan

ADHD, Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning, Learning differences, Thinking Skills

 

The coach comes, plans are made, checklists are created with extensive “TO DOs” and then what?  Nothing!

Students with executive functioning deficits have difficulty planning, organizing and initiating projects and homework. A tutor or coach can help students fill in their planner and breakdown their assignments to make a weekly “TO DO” plan, but they can not make the student follow the plan once they leave. Creating the plan is one thing, following the plan is another.

Parents and coaches often tell me how frustrating it can be to create a fabulous plan for the student only to find that the student didn’t follow through. Building executive functioning skills and study strategies takes time and practice. Remember back to when your child was learning his multiplication tables? What did the teacher tell you? Learn the concept, then drill and practice, drill and practice, drill and practice! Learning executive functioning skills is no different! To develop an understanding of executive functioning skills, you must first set up goals and explain how the brain works. Once the student understands what is expected, it is time to start the drill and practice, drill and practice, drill and practice!

One of the challenges many parents face is that executive functioning skills become more of a challenge in middle school. Many children are developmentally ready to become more independent and separate from their parents in middle school.  However, this is a transitional phase towards independence and many students still need their parents to help them scaffold new skills.  The executive functioning skill set is new to many middle school students.

So, what is the best way to get students to follow plan, use checklists, turn in homework, and build their independence at the same time? Most parents and executive functioning coaches / tutors face this challenging question. To help children learn new skills, you have to go back to the theory of scaffolding. Scaffolding new ideas and skills is like building a high-rise. First, you build the scaffolding on the outside the building to support the framework on the inside. The scaffolding stays up until the building is stable. At that point, the foundation is strong and the scaffolding can be taken down. This is what we need to be thinking about with children. We need to create the external structure–the scaffolding–and keep it in place until they have learned the skill. Once the skill is in place the scaffolding comes down.

Checklists, charts, study plans, apps for time management and check-in’s are all very effective scaffolding tools for students. However, we are looking for the external tools that the students can rely on to help them know what to do next and when to do it. It is important to remember that they still need reminders to check their checklists, planners and homework online. I have found that it is best if these reminders are automatic and not given by parents; rather, we use the student’s iPhone, iPad or other electronic device to create reminders and email alerts. There are many tools available now to alert a child to check his or her checklists.

At our center, we create an alert that shows up on the child’s phone, iPad, computer, etc. reminding the students to check their planner and update their study plan. They then have another alert half an hour before bedtime to check if everything has been done and put in their backpack. These alerts can be set to automatically alert the student every day, so they don’t depend on the student remembering to make a note. Once the students setup these alerts with the tutor/coach, it is time to involve the parents.

To help parents monitor their student’s progress, the student explains the plan to the parents. The student can then share their homework plan with their parents. Once this is done, it is updated automatically, allowing parents to use their phones or computers to confirm that their child is updating the study plan. We then ask the parents to set up alerts as well. The parents’ alerts are simple: 10 minutes after the student receives the alert, the parents receive an alert reminding them to check in with the student. We let students know that they will get their alert 20 minutes before bedtime, or whatever amount of time students and parents think is reasonable, and the parents will get an alert 10 minutes after the child’s alert. This allows the students to get started before the parent is alerted to make sure all work has been done for the evening.

Designing a plan is very important, and implementing the plan is critical. It is important to work with both students and parents to create a plan that can be followed up on daily basis. Our center often uses another system—daily emails—to help students develop a daily habit of checking, updating, and completing their study plan. The academic coach can send out a checklist that the student completes each night. The student’s responses are saved and sent to the academic coach where they can be easily compiled. This provides an additional reminder and allows the academic coach to gauge the student’s progress.

In creating a system like this, it is important to remember that success will not be 100% immediately. The entire support team—the academic coach, the parents and the student–must create an achievable goal. Success breeds success. Find out what percentage of homework is being done and use that as your baseline to create a new goal. For example, if the student turns in 50% of the homework now, the new goal would be to turn in 70%. Recognition of success is important for the child to see that he or she is making progress and that this hard work is worth it.

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Find your Executive Functioning Strengths and Weakness with our FREE QUIZ

ADHD, Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning, Learning differences, Processing Speed, Thinking Skills, Writing

Executive Functioning refers to the skills that help you organize, plan and execute a task. If you would like to discover your own executive functioning strengths and weaknesses, take our free quiz and then read below to see how each skill affects your thinking.

Click here to take the quiz: EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING QUIZ. When you are done write your results on the chart below.

Find more executive functioning strategies in the TLC Executive Functioning Workbook.



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Mastering Executive Functioning Skills Requires Grit and Resilience

ADHD, Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning, Learning differences, Thinking Skills

 by Melissa Mullin Ph.D.

Executive functioning skills enable students to manage their workload and plan for the future. These skills allow students to break down a task and organize it as well as create a time lime for completion. Grit  is defined as a passion to achieve a long-term goal, along with a powerful motivation to achieve the goal. Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. Research has demonstrated that grit may be a more accurate predictor of future success than IQ or talent.

Take a moment to think about how executive functioning and grit play an important role in learning. Executive functioning skills provide the path the student needs to tackle a task while grit provides the driving force to complete the task. Executive functioning skills are the map and grit is the motor that propels the car.

There has been a tremendous amount of information and conversation about executive functioning skills and success. Executive functioning skills are often discussed as the CEO or manager of your thought processes. Here is a quick overview of executive functioning components:

  • Initiate: start
  • Plan and Organize: stop, think and plan a strategy
  • Organize Material: materials available and organized
  • Inhibit: able to stay on task and avoid distractions
  • Emotional Control: resilient when frustrated and overwhelmed
  • Working Memory: able to hold and work on two mental concepts at once
  • Shift: can move from one activity to another easily
  • Monitor:  can check work and make changes as needed

While teaching executive functioning skills is important for any student that lacks them, a common complaint I hear from parents is that students aren’t using the skills they are taught. So, what is missing? There is the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”  I have found that executive functioning skills can be taught successfully, but for some students it takes more than teaching the skills to get the students to use them.  This brings us to grit.

Angela Duckworth was a middle and high school math teacher before she became a psychology professor. She noticed that the students who tried the hardest did the best in her class. When she became an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania,  she focused her work on a personality trait she calls “grit.” She writes that “the gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina.” The research results suggest that grit may be as essential as intelligence to achievement. Take Dr. Duckworth’s Grit quiz at the end of this article to discover your child’s grit level.

Paul Tough, the author of How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, believes the most valuable thing that parents can do to help their children develop their character, and therefore “grit”—may be to do nothing. He believes that we should let our children face some adversity on their own. Children will learn to persevere when they fall down and are not helped back up. Paul Tough writes: “Overcoming adversity is what produces character. And character, even more than IQ, is what leads to real and lasting success.”

I have seen many students with learning difficulties who struggle, fail, work  hard to learn, develop a tremendous amount of grit and go on to do well very in school. I have also seen bright children with learning challenges give up and not develop grit. Building grit is not as simple as letting your child fail. Research on resilience and praise adds another dimension to this issue. Parents and educators can help build resilience, and therefore “grit” by making sure to praise effort towards a task rather than the results.

The American Psychological Association article, Using Praise to Enhance Student Resilience and Learning Outcomes , found that students whose teachers praise effort and work strategies rather than praising intelligence will:

  • Apply more, not less, effort when material is difficult for them
  • Seek challenges
  • Set higher goals for themselves
  • Look at failures as opportunities to learn
  • Increase their efforts rather than withdraw effort and attention

Learning is a complicated and individual process. Knowing what a child needs to develop to help him succeed can be difficult. The relationship between executive functioning skills, grit, resilience and praise is important when creating a holistic educational plan for students. Teachers, parents and children all need to work together to create the challenges, opportunities and supports necessary to encourage the development of a child’s potential to its maximum level.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

8- Item Children’s Grit Scale

Directions for taking the Grit Scale: Please respond to the following 8 items. Be honest – there are no right or wrong answers.

  1. New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones.*
  • Very much like me
  • Mostly like me
  • Somewhat like me
  • Not much like me
  • Not like me at all

2. Setbacks (delays and obstacles) don’t discourage me.

  • Very much like me
  • Mostly like me
  • Somewhat like me
  • Not much like me
  • Not like me at all

3. I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest.*

  • Very much like me
  • Mostly like me
  • Somewhat like me
  • Not much like me
  • Not like me at all

4. I am a hard worker.

  • Very much like me
  • Mostly like me
  • Somewhat like me
  • Not much like me
  • Not like me at all

5. I often set a goal but later choose to pursue (follow) a different one. *

  • Very much like me
  • Mostly like me
  • Somewhat like me
  • Not much like me
  • Not like me at all

6. I have difficulty maintaining (keeping) my focus on projects that take more than a few months to complete. *

  • Very much like me
  • Mostly like me
  • Somewhat like me
  •             Not much like me
  • Not like me at all

7. I finish whatever I begin.

  • Very much like me
  • Mostly like me
  • Somewhat like me
  • Not much like me
  • Not like me at all

8. I am diligent (hard working and careful).

  • Very much like me
  • Mostly like me
  • Somewhat like me
  • Not much like me
  • Not like me at all

Scoring:

  • For questions 2, 4, 7 and 8 assign the following points:
    5 = Very much like me.
    4 = Mostly like me.
    3 = Somewhat like me.
    2 = Not much like me.
    1 = Not like me at all
  • For questions 1, 3, 5 and 6 assign the following points:
    1 = Very much like me
    2 = Mostly like me
    3 = Somewhat like me
    4 = Not much like me
    5 = Not like me at all
  • Add up all the points and divide by 8. The maximum score on this scale is 5 (extremely gritty), and the lowest scale on this scale is 1 (not at all gritty).

Duckworth, A.L, & Quinn, P.D. (2009). Development and validation of the Short Grit Scale (GritS). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 166-174. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Duckworth%20and%20Quinn.pdf

Duckworth, A.L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M.D., & Kelly, D.R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9, 1087-1101. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Grit%20JPSP.pdf

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Summer and Executive Functioning Skills

ADHD, Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning, Learning differences, Thinking Skills, Writing

 

Summer is a great time to catch up on material your child may not have mastered during the school year. Teaching reading, writing or math concepts will have clear benefits for your child when they re-enter school in the fall. But what about something as elusive as executive functioning? Can executive functioning skills be developed during the summer?  Identifying the areas your child needs to build will guide you in deciding what type of intervention is needed and if that intervention can be done in the summer.

One great rating scale is the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function® (BRIEF®) which consists of two rating forms–a parent questionnaire and a teacher questionnaire–designed to assess executive functioning in the home and school environments. The BRIEF is divided into 2 parts:

  1. Behavioral Regulation which includes the areas of:
    • Inhibit, Shift, Emotional Control
  2. Metacognition which includes the areas of:
    • Initiate, Working Memory, Plan/Organize, Organization of Materials, Monitoring

Initiation

•

starting work

Inhibition

•

stopping off-task behavior

Shift

•

moving from one activity to another

Working Memory

•

remembering information for immediate use

Planning

•

setting goals and the steps to accomplish them

Organizing Materials

•

tracking items in work spaces

Time Management

•

allotting appropriate time for each task

Monitoring

•

judging the quality and pace of work

Emotional Control

•

regulating stress and distractibility

If your child’s executive functioning weaknesses are in the area of behavioral regulation your intervention is going to be very different than if metacognition is the area of weakness.

Dr. Judy Willis (http://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-based-teaching-strategies-judy-willis) identifies some wonderful strategies to build executive functioning skills. Here is an edited version of her article.

1) Provide Opportunities to Apply Learning

When you provide students with opportunities to apply learning — especially through authentic, personally meaningful activities — and then provide formative assessments and feedback throughout a unit, facts move from rote memory to become part of the memory bank.

  • The expanding of related categories of information (Piaget’s schema) through executive function activities will consolidate learning into networks. These networks can be activated when students are prompted to use new learning to solve problems or create new products. This is the transfer process that further promotes network activation with the resulting neuroplasticity to construct long-term memory. Without these opportunities for strengthening, any memories learned by rote are simply pruned away from disuse after the test.

2) Introduce Activities to Support Developing Executive Function

  • Students need to be explicitly taught and given opportunities to practice using executive functions such as how to learn, study, organize, prioritize, review, and actively participate in class.
  • Activities that can support executive function network development include comparing and contrasting, giving new examples of a concept, spiraled curriculum, group collaboration, open-ended discussions. Additionally, executive function is developed when students summarize and symbolize new learning into new formats, such as through the arts or writing across the curriculum. (See The Brain-Based Benefits of Writing for Math and Science Learning.)
  • Consider how to acquire any skills or knowledge they lack to reach desirable goals. This type of student-prompted information and skill seeking strengthens students’ attitude about the value of learning. When motivated to solve problems that are personally meaningful, students apply effort, collaborate successfully, ask questions, revise hypotheses, redo work, and seek the foundational knowledge you need them to learn. And they do this because they want to know what you have to teach.

3) Model Higher Thinking Skills

  • In planning instruction, consider how and when you will model these higher thinking skills and provide opportunities for students to activate their developing executive function networks throughout the learning process.
  • Judgment
    • This executive function, when developed, promotes a student’s ability to monitor the accuracy of his or her work, and to analyze the validity of information heard or read. opinion are examples of promoting the development of networks for judgment.
  • Prioritizing
    • This executive function helps students to separate low relevance details from the main ideas of a text or topic of study. Prioritizing is the executive function that guides students when they plan an essay, select information to include in notes, and evaluate word problems in math for the relevant data.
  • Setting Goals, Providing Self-feedback and Monitoring Progress
    • Until students fully develop these pre-frontal cortex (PFC) executive functions, they are limited in their capacity to set and stick to realistic and manageable goals. As they develop these executive functions, they need guidance to recognize their incremental progress they make as they apply effort towards their larger goals.
  • Prior Knowledge Activation and Transfer Opportunities
    • Plan activities where students can relate what they know from past experiences to their current learning and tie it to the larger concept.
  • Metacognition
    • When you plan for and teach with mental manipulation for executive function in mind, your students will come to recognize their own changing attitudes and achievements. Describe your mental manipulation, challenges, and the executive functions you used to create something new as you found the authentic active learning opportunities that activated the students’ interest, perseverance, and higher levels of thinking.
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Metacognition Helps Build Self Regulation and Executive Functioning Skills

ADHD, Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning, Thinking Skills

Metacognition is thinking about thinking, knowing “what we know” and “what we don’t know.”  This means students take time to think about what needs to be done and how to do it. These students understand how the mind works and use this knowledge to help them. They take control over their learning process.

Building Metacognition skills can help build Self-Regulation skills by helping the student focus well. Building Self-Regulation skills can then help build Executive Functioning skills, which will allow the student to plan and organize better.

Gaskins & Pressley’s chapter in Executive Function in Education, 2007 presents a curriculum that teaches metacognitive skills. They describe how a child with strong metacognitive skills approaches a task. Metacognitive Learners:

  • Continually assess what they know.
  • As they read, write and problem-solve they:
    • Predict
    • Question
    • Create images
    • Clarify
    • Summarize
  • They are persistent; if the first strategy doesn’t work they try something else.
  • Have concrete strategies for approaching tasks.
  • Know success is the result of smart effort not just working hard.

Creating a mantra that children can memorize and use when they approach a task is very helpful to building metacognitive skills. Here are 4 steps to help teach metacognition skills:

  1.  STOP
  2. THINK: What am I supposed to do? Create a plan.
  3. DO: How do I do it? Follow the plan.
  4. CHECK: Did I do it? Check the plan.

Once they have memorized and begun using the mantra. Children will be asking themselves questions and talking themselves through tasks, thereby using metacognition strategies to help build executive functioning skills and behavior regulation skills.

Here are some examples of extended questions children can begin to ask themselves.

First, STOP!

Then, THINK. Make a plan before I start the task: When I am beginning a task, ask myself:

  • Why am I doing this?
  • Do I already know something that will help me?
  • What will the finished product look like?
  • What is my first step?
  • How much time do I have?

Next DO. During the task:  When I am monitoring the plan of action, ask myself:

  • How am I doing?
  • Am I following the directions?
  • What do I need to do next?
  • Does this match what I planned?
  • Am I getting enough done in the time I am spending?
  • Is there something I don’t understand?
  • Do I need to ask for help?

Finally, CHECK. After the task: When I am evaluating the plan of action, ask myself:

  • Did the product match the picture I had for it?
  • Is this better or worse than I expected?
  • What could I have done differently?
  • Is there anything missing?

Metacognitive strategies are teaching a child to be aware of his thoughts and control them. We are therefore trying to build behavioral regulation skills and executive functioning skills, which will in turn, activate the frontal lobe and hopefully build it. Brain research has shown that activity in the brain builds synapses, so we are taking a leap of faith (based on research and experience) that this will allow the child to attend better to tasks.

This is not easy; it requires constant reinforcement. Will it be successful? That depends on how well the plan is implemented.  What I have noticed at our learning center is that we get a number of middle school boys (along with some girls) who have weak executive functioning skills. There is a developmental growth in middle school that helps develop executive functioning skills which is evident by around 9th grade. My expectation is that many students who need help with executive functioning in middle school will build (with guidance and support) the skills they need to be successful when they enter high school.

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Middle School Students Need Strong Organizational Skills

ADHD, Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning

“How do I help my middle schooler who doesn’t write down assignments, hand in reports or turn in papers that need to be signed!?” asked a  mom out of frustration with her child’s recent behavior. Her daughter, Emily, was a strong student all through elementary school so she wasn’t prepared for Emily to fall behind on her work in middle school.

In our center we have a number of middle school students with executive functioning difficulties like Emily child. One great resource is the book Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare.  I like Dawson and Guare’s definition: “ Executive Functioning skills enable us to manage our emotions and monitor our thoughts in order to work efficiently. Simply stated, these skills help us regulate our behavior”.  This book will gives  a good overview of executive functioning. I think the authors’ explanation of developmental trends and brain development is wonderful. There is a good discussion of executive functioning skills and how to link assessment to intervention

Another great resource is Gaskins & Pressley’s chapter on metacognition in Executive Function in Education, 2007.   You can also read my blog article on building metacognition skills. Metacognition is thinking about thinking, and taking control over your thought processes. This is the step missing in most students with executive functioning difficulties.

So, how to help the unorganized middle school student who is  “not writing down assignments, not handing in reports, not giving notes to parents that need to be signed or not returning the signed note”?  I’ll give you an example of a plan that was made between a parent and one of our executive functioning coaches just yesterday.

  1. First, we created a motivational plan for the student. We needed to figure out something that will make him want to complete the checklist that we were going to give him. So, you need to figure out what that will be for your child, something that you can give to him every week if he completes the checklists that are created for him.
  2.  Once we had the reward system that the parents and the child were happy with, we were able to present the child with the checklist. The first part of the list included the items that needed to be in his backpack and taken to school each morning.
  3. That second part of the checklist included the items that needed to be taken out of his backpack and handed in once he got to school.
  4.  The next part of the checklist was for things that needed to be in his backpack and taken home each night.
  5. And finally, the last part of the list was the before-bedtime checklist of things that needed to be in his backpack and ready to go to school the next morning.
  6. Now the most important part of the system is that the checklist needed to be signed by both the parents and teachers daily.

The reward was given for completing these checklists on a weekly basis. It is important to figure out what percent of the time your child is completing these tasks now. If your child is currently doing these things 50% of the time, make the goal that he complete the task 80% of the time to receive the reward. You want to set the system up to succeed, so we don’t want it to be overwhelming. You actually want to make it so your child is earning the reward.

This is important: Set your child up for success by implementing a program that is broken down into steps that are achievable. So, pick one thing that you think your child can do and set that as the first goal. For many of our students, the first goal is just to get the checklist signed.

If the goal is just to have the checklist list signed daily, it means the student doesn’t have to have everything in the backpack before they take it to get it signed. The parent and the teacher should reward the child for consistently presenting the checklist for their signature. Then the parent and the teacher, can gently remind the student to either write down assignments that are missing from the worksheet, turn in assignments that are missing, or add any materials to the backpack that should be there and aren’t. Once the first goal is achieved consistently you can set the next goal.

Children with executive functioning difficulties need to have tasks broken down into manageable parts. That is the goal (being able to break tasks into small achievable steps) for parents and teachers to set in order to help these children achieve. Generally, students that are not organized tend to become overwhelmed by the prospect of the task ahead. This overwhelmed feeling is what stops them from being able to begin the task. By teaching students how to look at a task and mentally, or physically by making a list, and breaking it down, you are teaching your child executive functioning skills.

We have seen so many children with this area of difficulty that we are currently developing a workbook that parents and children can use together to build the skills. Our Executive Functioning Workbook is available through Amazon.com . The most important message is that children cannot do this alone. Building executive functioning skills need to start with an external structure guided by a coach, who can be a parent or a professional, who helps them consistently review the steps needed and follow them, until the external structure becomes an internal monologue. This internal monologue is metacognition in action. I sometimes tell parents they just need to help their children learn the mantra: “Stop, Think, Plan, Do, Check”. We find the first step to be the most difficult. Most children with executive functioning issues go straight to DO without taking time to do the other four for steps.  So, if you can help your child STOP, THINK, PLAN and CHECK you will be instilling great executive functioning skills which will help him in school and in life.

Here is an example of a checklist from our Executive Functioning Workbook.  This checklist is teaching a child to use his/her planner each day. The important thing to remember is to discuss strategies to make using the checklist successful.  That is the Stop, Think, Plan, and Do mantra. Stop: What am I doing? Think: Do I have a checklist for this? Think: Yes, I do, because I want to make sure everything I need from homework tonight gets home. Do: Get out the planner and go down the list.

I hope this helps.
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Learning and Stress Can Be Related

Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning, Math, Processing Speed, Reading, Spelling, Thinking Skills

Stress is a major factor for many students these days. Students who have a learning disability have to work harder than their typical learning peers just to keep up in the classroom. When a child has to struggle to pay attention, read, write or do math their stress levels can increase with the tasks. There is a term called “Learned Helplessness”. Learned helplessness refers to children who have failed repeatedly and now they give up without even trying. In other words, they learn to be helpless to avoid another failure.

What can be done to help these students? The first thing to do is identify the area that is causing the struggle. Next, develop a plan to build the needed skills and a strategy to help gain control over the topic (reading, writing, math). When children understand why they are struggling in school it is easier for them to change their thoughts from “I’m dumb and I can’t do anything” to “I have an auditory processing difficulty that makes reading hard for me and I can get a tutor to help me.” The information the child gains about his learning strengths and weaknesses allows him to change his thoughts from a global sense of failure to a specific area of weakness that can be strengthened. Helping children change their feelings from out of control to in control is important to the learning process.

Many students who have struggled for a long time or have a specific area of stress can benefit from the emWave Desktop, a computer program that teaches breathing techniques to decrease stress and anxiety.  I have found it very helpful in my practice with students with math, writing or test anxiety. It is simple to use. The student is hooked to the computer and a game is played that demonstrates the child’s heart rate. There is a range of heart rate that is called coherence, this range indicates that the child is calm and in control. Learning breathing techniques to help a student maintain coherence even when in stressful situations can help the child maintain focus and perform better on tests and assignments.

Here is a Youtube video of the program being used with some gifted children.

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Executive Functioning and Self-Control

Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Learning, Thinking Skills

Self-control is the ability to delay gratification. This is important in the development of executive functioning skills for many students. The ability to inhibit behavior, i.e. wait a minute, means the student can use that break to stop and think.

Example: Shoving finished homework in the backpack (which gratifies the student because he is DONE), versus taking an extra minute and putting it in the homework section of your notebook so it gets turned in. The reward of having turned in homework is delayed gratification.

A Scientific American article by Dan Ariely  cites both a new study at Duke and the famous marshmallow study by Mischel. Though years have gone by between the studies they both demonstrate that self-control affects cognition and social outcomes in adolescents and adults. View the YouTube video of a remake of the study.

Ariely asks a great question: Where does the skill of self-control come from? Is this an issue of nature (what you are born with) or nurture (what you have been taught)? It appears that self-control is an issue of nurture, children who were able to wait developed a strategy to help them avoid temptation. Ariely points out that when you watch the children in the marshmallow study you will see that they all struggle with the impulse to eat the marshmallow now rather than wait to get another one later. However, the children that do succeed find strategies to help them; they sit on their hands, sing songs, and look around.

Moreover, Mischel found that children were better at delaying rewards when distracting thoughts were suggested to them.

Ariely uses the metaphor of the tale of Ulysses and the sirens to demonstrate the use of a strategy to help resist temptation. Ulysses knew that the sirens’ enchanting song could lead him to follow them, but he didn’t want to do that.  At the same time he also did not want to deprive himself from hearing their song – so he asked his sailors to tie him to the mast and fill their ears with wax to block out the sound – and so he could hear the song of the sirens but resist their lure. Was Ulysses able to resist temptation? No, but he was able to come up with a strategy that prevented him from acting on his impulses.

What this story and the marshmallow study tell us is that the ability to exert self-control is less connected to a natural ability and more linked to the ability to reconfigure our environment (tying ourselves to the mast) and temper the intensity by which it tempts us (filling our ears with wax).

This is good news. We can teach children strategies to help them overcome temptation once we are able to identify the situations that tempt them.

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