Tag: thinking

How do you teach executive functioning skills to a rigid child?

ADHD, Behavioral Regulation, Executive Functioning, Flexible Thinking, Processing Speed, Thinking Skills

Executive functioning skills

Today I spoke to a mom of a 10 year old boy who is struggling in school. This student, Ben, is a bright boy who had been diagnosed with ADHD and a processing speed disorder. Ben’s reading, writing and math fluency scores are below his achievement in each area. While Ben has the accommodation of extra time it doesn’t help him, as he won’t use the extra time available to him. Ben has trouble organizing his thoughts, so he has a difficult time starting a task. Additionally, his working memory skills are weak making it hard for him integrate new ideas with previous knowledge. Ben would rather do things the way that he has always done them making it hard to teach him new strategies. Ben tends towards having a meltdown when he doesn’t like someone or something.

My suggestions to Ben’s mom were:

  • Continue working with their medical doctor for interventions for ADHD.
  • Start with an educational coach or specialist who understands executive functioning and rigid thinking.
  • Begin the intervention with full homework support and slowly begin pointing out areas where a plan would help him.
  • Developing Ben’s awareness of his thought processes through discussions of what he is thinking, along with using metacognitive strategies will allow him to begin to build the skills needed to begin new tasks. The metacognitive strategies can also be designed to help him with his behavioral regulation.
  • Once Ben is comfortable with his new helper, the educator can begin using the STOP, THINK, PLAN, DO mantra to help Ben begin to figure out how to approach a task. Learn more about using this mantra and building flexible thinking skills at Flexible Thinking Skills.com

    flexiblethinkingskills.com

As Ben begins to learn how to approach a task and becomes willing to consider options that will help him learn better, he will be ready to learn the executive functioning skills of organization and time management.

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How DO you teach children with learning challenges?

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

Effective teaching requires a connection between the teacher and the student. This connection allows the teacher to modify and accelerate instruction as the student grows. Understanding the zone of proximal development helps the teacher understand what a child is capable of learning in any given session. The zone of proximal development is a way to visualize the learning zone.

Zone of Proxmial development

Any information above the zone is too difficult for the child to comprehend while anything below the zone she’s already mastered and no longer needs to work on. The tricky part about the zone is it is always moving. On days that the stars are aligned and the child is open and able to learn easily, the child will move swiftly through almost any appropriate material you give. However, if a child has a learning disability, or struggles with emotional regulation, the zone may be different for different subjects or on different days depending on what has happened already before the learning session. It is the role of the teacher to connect with the child at the beginning of the session to determine where the zone is for that day and then moving the child step-by-step though the material to take him to higher levels of comprehension.

Staying in the zone may sound simple, but it is the core of working with any child with a learning challenge. If instructors stay within a child’s zone of proximal development the child will learn. The challenge for the instructor is both staying within the zone and having the appropriate materials so that the child can connect to the new information. Having instructional tools that appropriately address the child’s area of deficits is critical to the learning process. The selection of materials can be a challenge in itself. One reading program may be great for certain kind of student and completely inappropriate for another student. This is where testing and evaluations are helpful. An educational professional can read the testing results and match the child’s areas of weaknesses to programs that develop those specific areas.

Another key component for creating a successful treatment plan is making it fun and motivating for the child. I believe all children want to learn and feel good about their intellectual capability. Our role as teachers, parents and educators is creating the right interventions which stay in the child learning zone, address the specific needs of the child, are fun and guide the child towards his or her potential.

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Language Organization Skills Blend Executive Functioning and Language Skills To Help Us Communicate Clearly

ADHD, Dyslexia, Executive Functioning, Learning, Learning differences, Thinking Skills, Visual Processing, Writing

Language serves many purposes. We use language to share our needs, our wants, our feelings and our thoughts. We use language to become apart of our shared community and socially interact with others. Weak language skills can make a person feel isolated and disconnected from those around him. In addition, he may miss out on learning opportunities. Language skills help build strong social connections and friendships as well as allow us to absorb information from teachers and the world around us.

Most people learn language organically as they develop from an infant to a toddler and beyond into adulthood. Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, breaks language into two parts. The first part involves creating a relationship between meaning and sound. What this refers to is that when we hear the sound “d-o-g” we think of a dog, an animal that has four legs and a tail. The average person performs this task quickly and automatically. Most people have learned 50,000 to 100,000 words, which they can quickly and efficiently process from sound to meaning.

The second part of language, according to Pinker, is ability to follow rules and combine words to communicate the thought we have to another person. We learn that “Sarah sat on a hat” has a different meaning than “ A hat sat on Sarah”. We learn that the order of the words is important and that we can get different meanings from the same words.

There is a growing population of students who are struggling with the organizational component of language. Many of these students have acquired the sound to meaning portion of language, but they get overwhelmed when they are required to organize their thoughts to effectively communicate their idea to others. I have begun to call this a “Language Organization Deficit.”

Many of the students who experience this difficulty have a background history of dyslexia, ADHD or language processing difficulty. Some students with Language Organization issues experience word-finding issues, but more commonly they have trouble quickly and clearly conveying information. They may talk around an idea without ever stating what they are trying to communicate. Students with Language organization issues can have trouble keeping up with the pace of the conversation, leading to difficulty in social situations. They also struggle with organizing their ideas to write a paper.

Students with a Language Organization weakness need to build both their language skills and their executive functioning skills.

  • Strengthening the phonological loop with rapid naming exercises can help speed up the word finding component of language.
  • Teaching the Executive Functioning skills of Stop, Think, Plan, Do can allow the student to slow down to organize his ideas.
  • Building a strong vocabulary base, learning antonyms and synonyms, will increase the choices a student has to express his ideas.
  • Learning to breakdown ideas into parts and then organize them can help a student start a task without feeling overwhelmed.
  • Building flexible thinking skills can help a child with language organization issues find new ways of thinking and organizing ideas.

Language and the ability to share thoughts is a basic skill. Those who struggle in this area miss many opportunities for development and friendships. I hope that looking at and considering the organizational component of language can help more students effectively and fluently communicate their thoughts and feelings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Building Executive Functioning Skills May Be The Best Intervention For Increasing Processing Speed.

Executive Functioning, Learning, Learning differences, Processing Speed, Thinking Skills, Visual Processing

 

Processing speed is becoming a stumbling block for many students. The number of students who are requesting extra time on tests has increased tremendously over the years. What does it mean to have a processing speed dysfunction?  The case studies below are examples of how processing speed issues can vary from student to student.

  • Don is a quiet shy boy who loves skateboarding and hanging out with his family. He is sweet and everyone likes him, however he has no close friends. Don does not initiate conversations or join in conversations with friends at school, which keeps him from being part of the “group”.  Don moves at his own pace and cannot be rushed. Don’s slow processing is global. He is slow moving (except on a skateboard!), slow reading and writing, slow to take in verbal information and to respond verbally to questions.  Don can now read and write at grade level, but his reading and writing fluency are slow. Don continues to have difficulty finding the right words to express his ideas and still would rather sit back and watch a group than join in. Don needs extra time to take in, process and organize his ideas before responding regardless of the type of task presented. 
  • Sara is 8 years year old and quick as quick can be to let you know her opinions. She is highly social and very verbal. Her reading and reading comprehension skills are strong. Sara struggles with slowing down when she is writing. Her handwriting skills are poor and her spelling is weak. She makes careless errors on math problems, which causes her to lose points and get low grades. When asked to write for school Sara quickly becomes upset. Homework is a stressful and prolonged activity. Sara’s fine motor skills are weak and she hates writing. Her weakness in handwriting and organizing her thoughts cause her to avoid writing and she often turns in incomplete work. Sara needs extra time to allow her to stop and think, organize her thoughts and narrow them down in to a manageable amount of information to write down. She also needs extra time to allow her to slowly and carefully write the words on paper.
  • Alex has been diagnosed with a Nonverbal Learning Disability (NLD). One of the main components of NLD is a lack of organizational skills. This means that Alex has a hard time putting all the pieces of information he gathers together to allow him to come to a meaningful conclusion. Breaking down instructions in order to follow them is a challenge, so Alex often just guesses at what he is supposed to do based on pictures or looking at what other are doing. Alex needs extra time to circle and highlight the important information in texts and worksheets so that he can focus on the most important part. He also needs extra time to contemplate the information and come to meaningful conclusion.

Each of these children struggle with processing speed, but the cause of their struggle is different. Weak fine motor skills and/or organizational skills are common factors in processing speed issues. While for many students the fine motor skills are a chief cause of frustration, I am beginning to consider weak executive functioning skills a key factor affecting processing speed.

Young children can work to improve their fine motor skills and therefore increase their processing speed, if that is the main cause of the processing speed deficit. However, for older children and those whose processing speed deficit is cognitively based, building executive functioning skills will be the best intervention for increasing processing speed.

I invite you to take our free executive functioning quiz and find out what skills are strong, and which are weak for you or your child.

Here is a list of Executive Functioning skills:

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

For many of the students I see with a processing speed issue, the executive functioning skills of initiate, shift, plan, time management and emotional control are difficult for them. I consider the ability to shift as the most important skill to develop. If a child gets stuck on an idea and can’t let go of it to consider a new idea, nothing can change. If a child gets frustrated and shuts down he can’t find solution to the problem, rather he becomes overwhelmed and defeated. Many students with this profile need to learn new ways to approach tasks so that they can hone in on the most important part. To help them save time and therefore speed up, these students can learn new organization skills that will help them start and finish work in a timely manner. However, they need to be flexible thinkers to do this.

For students with this profile I suggest they build flexible thinking skills first and then organization skills. You can read my blog article on building flexible thinking skills to learn more. I also created The Flexible Thinking Workbook to help students build these very important skills.

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How Does A Low Processing Speed Score Affect My Child?

Executive Functioning, Learning, Processing Speed, Thinking Skills, Visual Processing, Writing

Question: My 16 year old son has just had an evaluation and he was given the following scores on the test: 
 PRI 132, VCI 130, WMI 110, PSI 76
. I don’t understand how exactly this affects him, though I do notice he is a bit slow on some activities. How does the combination of the factors above translate into his abilities?

My son also can be difficult to deal with. He often does not like to work on any work assigned to him (It’s difficult to get him to do homework), which causes him to sometimes not hand in homework assignments. He is also quite disorganized, and procrastinates often. Socially, he is withdrawn and shy, even with people he knows.  He does have a few friends, and he can be lively around them. I wouldn’t say he has any deficits in communication, as he can still communicate well, and I think he just does not prefer to communicate or is shy.

 Answer: Your child has developed a strong vocabulary and is easily able to explain his understanding of socially based concepts. Your child’ ability to quickly and efficiently process auditory information, especially verbal information, is excellent. His ability to perform visual spatial problem solving is also very strong.

However, while your child demonstrates well-developed cognitive skills his ability to process information at the level his reasoning skills suggest is compromised by several factors present in testing. First, your child’s ability to read and synthesize material in a timely manner may be affected by his weakness in visual-discrimination and processing speed. His weak processing speed impacts his ability to process visual information as quickly as his strong cognitive skills suggest. This can impact his ability to read, write and perform math problem quickly.

Taken together, the significant discrepancy  between your child’ Verbal Comprehension and his Processing Speed Indexes; along with the differences between Perceptual Organization and Working Memory Indexes and Processing Speed Index, reflects a need for extended time on academic tasks and tests. Therefore, it is recommended that your child be granted extended time on all assignments and tests, including standardized testing such as the SAT and ACT. Furthermore, Your child’s current profile confirms he has  a visual perceptual and visual motor processing deficit and accommodations are warranted to allow your child additional time, or a reduction in work on all academic tasks.

The issue of your son’s lack of desire to communicate could be due to many reasons. There is a great book out called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking 
by Susan Cain. This might be a good book for you to read to determine if your son is an introvert, which may explain his lack of interaction with people around him.

The issue of his disorganization and difficulty completing homework may be due to weak executive functioning skills. You can learn more about executive functioning at http://executivefunctioning.com.

RECOMMENDATIONS & ACCOMMODATIONS

• It is recommended that the results of his evaluation be shared with your child so he may understand his profile of strengths and weaknesses and can adjust his learning and study strategies accordingly.

• Based upon your child’s status as a student with a Learning Disability, he should be provided the following accommodations:

  • Extra time on tests (at least 50%)
  • Extended time (at least 50%) on all standardized tests including ACT, SAT and AP tests

Improve your child’s Working Memory, Attention and Executive Functioning Skills

• The CogMed program is recommended to build your child’s working memory, which will help support his attention processing.

• A program designed to improve your child’s executive functioning skills (such as the K & M Center Executive Functioning Program) is recommended.

• A program designed to increase your child’s cognitive flexibility is also recommended (such as the K & M Flexible Thinking Program)

• Teach your child to use self-talk to organize his learning and performance strategies and to focus his attention on tasks

• Build strategies to help your child analyze, prioritize, and execute specific steps in a given assignment

• Break down tasks and follows the order checking work along the way

• Teach strategies to increase engagement

Writing


• Encourage pre-writing activities such as brainstorming and outlining

• Use of Inspiration (Inspriation.com) and Dragon Speak Naturally (http://www.nuance.com/dragon/index.htm) to help him organize his thoughts and share them.

• Re-Train the Brain (Retrainthebrain.com) can help fine motor skills to make writing easier.

Visual-Perceptual Strategies

• Use graphic organizers to depict information visually and increase his retention of ideas.

• Note-taking techniques that will present and summarize heard information visually.

• Practice exercises to sharpen his ability to attend to visual detail and to express similarities and differences between images.

Processing Speed

• Allow extra time for tests, usually time and a half

• Provide extra time for your child to complete in-class assignments

• Train your child in time management techniques to become aware of the time that tasks take.

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How to help your child succeed in middle school

ADHD, Executive Functioning, Learning, Learning differences

Communication is the key to success in Middle School

Last week Mrs. Smith came to visit me and discuss her daughter, Sarah. Sarah is in seventh grade and has been struggling all year. Last year in sixth grade Sarah earned all A’s and B”s on her report card.  Sarah has a history of doing well in school. At the beginning of seventh grade Sarah began experiencing difficulty in a class or two, but she promised her mother that she would work harder and handle it. All year long Sarah promised her mother that she would do better. However, Sarah was not able to take control of her schoolwork and pull up her grades.

Teacher comments on Sarah’s report cards consistently stated that she was missing homework and doing poorly on tests. Sarah’s mother trusted her because Sarah had always done well in school. Mrs. Smith did not realize until too late that Sarah needed some academic support to help her to well in seventh-grade.

This story is important. The transition between elementary school and middle school can place an extraordinary load on a child’s organizational, planning and follow-through skills. Many students have not developed, or needed, executive functioning skills prior to middle school. The tragedy of this is when you have a strong student like Sarah who suddenly fails three classes.

It is important for parents to realize what they need to do to help their children succeed in middle school. I wish that Sarah’s mother had come to us in October or November of last year and we could have set up a plan to help her get her work done and turned in on time.

Communication is the key to success.

The communication needs to be between the teachers, the parents and the child. This sounds like a simple task, but as many middle school parents know it is not. If your child is at a school where teachers have an online homework program, that they actually keep up to date, then it is important for parents and students to check that online tool and make sure the child knows what needs to be done and when it needs to be turned in.

Many middle school teachers find it difficult to keep these online homework sites updated.  Without the online homework check it can become a challenge for parents to know what assignments their child has. So what can you do?

  •  Have a meeting with the teacher
  • Find a friend who is a good note taker and is willing to help update your child on what is due
  • Have your child take a picture of the assignments listed on the board
  •  Request that the school give you weekly updates on unfinished assignments and outstanding homework
  • Check in with your child every night, go through the notebook and planner to help them get organized.
  •  Create a homework calendar where weekly and monthly assignments are written down
  • Understand that you are teaching your child the steps to success and that this is a process that will take time.
  •  Don’t wait more than a month if your child begins to struggle in school
  • Ask for help and find a system that works for your family

Middle school is a very exciting and trying time as your child goes through developmental growth, both mentally and physically. It is a time when children require more independence, however they are not always ready for parents to step back completely. This is the time period where parents transition from teacher to coach, guiding their children to develop the skills that they need to succeed.

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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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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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Learning Differences: How Can Teachers Help?

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

What is a learning disability?

  • A discrepancy that exists between a person’s potential for learning and what she actually learns.
  • The learning problem is not due to:
  • Mental retardation
  • Lack of motivation
  • Emotional issues
  • Biological imbalances

What are the main types of learning issues?

The 3 main types are:

  • Language processing, which includes auditory processing.
  • Visual processing, which includes visual motor integration.
  • Attention deficit disorder, ADHD.

      Understanding the Symptoms of Learning Differences:

Auditory Processing

Jessica is in 2nd grade. Her parents see her as bright and friendly. Socially, she interacts well with peers and adults. Jessica’s mother became concerned when she observed her daughter in the classroom. Outside the classroom Jessica is active and outspoken, inside the classroom Jessica was withdrawn. Jessica stayed to herself and avoided interaction with teachers and peers. The teacher reported that Jessica could not learn her math facts or read. Jessica also had difficulty following simple directions and would not ask questions when she did not understand what she supposed to do. An auditory processing difficulty often means the student is unable to understand, or process auditory input at the rate it is spoken. Depending on the extent of the problem, students may miss anywhere from 5% to 50% of the information being given.

Classroom accommodations

  • Encourage participation
  • Form small groups where she feels comfortable joining in.
    • Call on her only when you know she knows the answer. Often this will be the 2nd or 3rd person to talk in the discussion as this will give her time to establish the context of the conversation.
    • Praise her for her accomplishments.
    • Have her work with a partner.
    • Find out what she’s good at and have her share that skill with the class.
    • Help her understand directions.
      • Her low reading ability limits her understanding of written corrections and her auditory processing difficulties make it difficult for her to understand oral directions.
      • Break both written and oral directions into short concise parts.
      • Teach her to number each set of written directions and underline key words, which indicate actions needed to complete the assignment.
      • Check with her directly after getting instruction is given to ensure she understands what she is to do.
      • Seat her in the front of the class so she can gain as many visual and auditory clues as possible.
      • Help her visualize what she’s reading or listening to.
      • Concretely convey objectives.
        • Provide context for new materials by building on familiar concepts.
        • Answer questions by referring back to the main idea of the topic to help facilitate the understanding of the whole concept.

Visual Motor Integration

Kevin is in the 6th grade. He is extremely verbal and is an excellent reader. He is able to verbally demonstrate his knowledge of what he has read. He performs well on multiple-choice tests. However, when asked to write a paragraph Kevin uses simple sentences and gives only brief answers. His writing is messy. He ignores margins, indents haphazardly, and has trouble anchoring his letters on the line. Kevin also has difficulty in math. His writing is so sloppy he makes careless errors due to misreading what he’s working on. Additionally, Kevin’s class notes are incomplete and often so difficult to read even he doesn’t know what they say. Lastly, Kevin’s assignment book is never filled in completely causing him to miss assignments. A weakness in visual motor integration means the student has fine motor problems, which make it hard for him to write, combined with a visual problem, which makes it hard for him to manually reproduce visually presented information. Therefore, copying from a book or the board is extremely difficult. Anything that requires fine motor skills, like writing, is challenging for a child like this. Students with a visual motor integration weakness dislike writing. They generally turn in written work that is sloppy and inferior in quality. All written work is laborious and takes an exorbitant amount of time.

Classroom accommodations

  • Give handouts, or have a partner whose notes Kevin can photocopy, rather than requiring him to copy from the board.
  • Assist in note-taking by providing an outline, which he can then fill in with the lecture information.
  • Give him a template to write paragraphs and essays.
    • The template has the indent markers and margins clearly noted.
    • Use wide ruled paper.
    • Allow the use of computer whenever possible.
    • For long assignments, that cannot be done on the computer, either shorten the assignment or allow him extra time.
    • Allow him to use graph paper for all math assignments.
    • Once you’ve demonstrated mastery of math facts allow the use of the computer.

ADHD

Katie is in 5th grade. She is bright and an evaluation of her skills indicates that she has superior verbal skills and average to superior performance skill. Katie was noted by teachers to exhibit tremendous anxiety, which inhibited her from demonstrating her ability. She is struggling in all subjects and has difficulty staying focused during lectures. She is observed to  “daydream” during independent work times. Her attentional difficulties present a problem at home and at school. Katie is unable to stay on task and is easily distracted. She often leaves the books she needs for homework at school. She also forgets to turn in her homework. Amy is in 1st grade. She is unable to remain in her chair. She calls out answers before the teacher is finished asking the question. She has a difficult time lining up and often pushes other children around her. Her writing and drawing is hastily finished, resulting in sloppy work. ADHD students are unable to remain focused and therefore miss details and make careless mistakes. They often fail to follow through on assignments and have a difficult time organizing their thoughts, as well as their work. They forget things, lose things and are easily distracted. When attention deficit has the added component of hyperactivity it makes it difficult for students to remain physically calm. They squirm and fidget. They need to get up and move around, and often talk excessively. Waiting for turns is difficult because these students to jump into games and conversations.

Classroom accommodations

  • Seat her in the front of the room.
  • Have “cue” words that you both agreed upon, these are intended to call her back when she’s daydreaming.
  • Provide structure words in your lectures that enable her to refocus and know where she is. “1st point, 2nd point, 3rd point, moving to the next idea”.
  • Provide weekly assignment sheets.
  • Use visual organizers/calendars for long-term assignments.
  • Check her assignment book, or have a partner check, to ensure she has all assigned work written down and knows which books need to be taken home.
  • Remind her to turn in homework each day.
  • If movement is a problem, discuss appropriate movements that can be done within the classroom system.
    • A wiggle seat can be helpful.
    • Timers can be very helpful, especially ones that count down.
    • Checklists and charts that can be used in the classroom and at home can be very beneficial.
    • Teach children to take control of their thinking with this mantra
STOP: “What am I doing?”
THINK: “What do I need to do? Do I have a checklist I can use?”
PLAN:  “ What are the steps needed to finish this task?”
 DO: Now you can sit down and start working!
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