What is Executive Function?
The idea that there is a system of functions within our brain that helps us coordinate our actions, direct our behavior, and manage our emotional response is a long-standing concept. The term “executive functions” was created by Karl Pribram in the 1970s through his research that attempted to understand the role of the prefrontal cortex (Barkley, 2012). The interest in how we use cognition to set and achieve goals is a widely explored topic with varying definitions and approaches. Although there are many definitions of executive function, the general consensus is that the executive functions work together, often as a series of clusters or areas, to coordinate our ability to set goals, manage our emotions, and work toward achieving that goal. Academic exploration of the nature of executive function has provided valuable insight and information on the importance of intact executive function skills for success in the classroom and in daily life.
Impact on Schooling
Landmark Outreach has publications that synthesize the research and outline how best support students’ executive function skills in the classroom. According to Patricia W. Newhall author of Language-Based Learning Series: Executive Function: Foundations for Learning and Teaching, “Executive Function is the brain’s ability to coordinate the cognitive and psychological processes needed to initiate, sustain, monitor and adapt the behaviors and attitudes required to achieve a goal” (2012, p.2).
She also writes that in thinking about the impairment of executive function skills, there are generally two models: bottom-up and top-down difficulties.
- Bottom-up difficulties are more often seen with students who have language processing issues. In this model, their individual skill sets are so impaired that they often become unable to reach the actual goal. For instance, if a student is given the goal of writing a paragraph, their executive function skills do not matter if their language skills impede their ability to produce a written paragraph.
- On the other hand, top-down difficulties reflect a student’s difficulty with specific executive function skills rather than language-based skills that hinder reaching the goal.
Building executive function skills into the classroom lends itself well to the sixth Landmark Teaching Principle™: Include the Student in the Learning Process. Recognition and awareness of strengths and weaknesses within the executive functions involves the student’s ability to reflect and be metacognitive about his/her abilities.
Well-Known Executive Function Theorists:
Dr. Thomas E. Brown explains executive function in the terms of a music conductor: “regardless of their expertise, the musicians need a competent conductor who will select the piece to play, make sure they start playing at the same time and stay on tempo, fade in the strings and then bring in the brass, and manage them as they interpret the music. Without an effective conductor, the symphony will not produce good music” (Brown, 2007, p.23). In other words, Dr. Brown believes that we need to coordinate what he believes are the six clusters of executive function, activation, focus, effort, emotion, memory, and action to achieve goals. Brown’s widely circulated article, Executive Functions: Describing Six Aspects of a Complex System, explains these clusters and their impact on an individual in more detail.
Dr. Russell A. Barkley’s theories focus on 7 core skills. He believes that individuals with intact executive function skills exhibit the following when working towards a goal: Self-awareness, Inhibition, Non-Verbal Working Memory, Verbal Working Memory, Emotional Self-Regulation, Self-Motivation, and Planning and Problem Solving. Watch this his video below learn more about how these areas work to support the executive functions:
Drs. Peg Dawson and Richard Guare state in their book Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: A Practical Guide to Assessment and Intervention (2018) that “Executive skills allow us to organize our behavior over time and override immediate demons in favor of longer term goals. Through the use of these skills we can plan and organize activities, sustain our attention and persist to complete a task. Executive skills enable us to manage our emotions and monitor our thoughts in order to work more efficiently and effectively. Simply stated, these skills help us to regulate our behavior” (Dawson and Guare, 2018, p. 1). They believe the following five skills are necessary to set and achieve goals and solve problems: planning, organization, time management, working memory, metacognition, and that the following skills to help us see the task to the end: response inhibition, emotional control, sustained attention, task initiation, flexibility, and goal directed persistence. To understand more about how these areas work together to help coordinate the executive functions, read this article.
Executive Function Intervention and Support
When it comes to supporting student’s executive function skills, there are plethora of resources and ideas for how to work with students to improve their skills.
To get important insights into their students’ skills, classroom teachers can provide students with simple questionnaires about their work habits and attitudes towards school and other routines. If students complete self-questionnaires at the beginning of the school year, the classroom teacher can be provided with knowledge about their strengths, weakness, interests, and needs. This type of information can be extremely useful when thinking about the classroom environment and designing lesson plans and units. In addition, questionnaires can be used as a basis for reviewing the students’ results with them and using the information to help guide them to form individual goals for specific quarters or the whole school year. This procedure helps the students to hone in on skills they need to practice or address, and it provides the students with a focus for skill development. Lastly, teachers can use questionnaires to compare their own information with self-reflections provided by their students. If both the teacher and the student fill out a questionnaire concerning the student, a comparison and discussion around those results can be both enlightening and informative. Useful discussions can be formed around the similarities or disparities in the assessments, allowing for the development of strategies to improve student results and/or providing more cohesion.
For sample questionnaires, please click the following links:
Executive Function Questionnaire for Young Students
Executive Function Questionnaire for Older Students
Beyond questionnaires, there are several strategies and supports that teachers can employ in the classroom to boost students’ effectiveness with executive function skills.
Self-Awareness Building: Use reflective tools, including questionnaires, goal-setting, and journals. Using questionnaires allows students to reflect on specific skills and their development with that skill. Creating goals based on strengths and weaknesses and areas for improvement gives the students something tangible to work toward, but also allows for productive conversations around progress toward meeting those goals.
Planning: Have students complete step-by-step plans for each assignment. Throughout the process, have students reflect on their progress toward the end result. Discuss with the student what went wrong, what went well, and what can be changed to reach a better outcome.
Managing Focus: Include multi-sensory teaching strategies that actively engage the students in the lesson. The more hands-on the lessons can be, the better the students will focus.
Managing Materials: Create a system for managing classroom materials and stick with it. Model that system for the students and take the time to ensure that each student has set up a similar system with which s/he can follow through. Once those systems are in place, provide the students with direct instruction around keeping those materials organized. When handing out paper, label it specifically and tell the students where to put it. Allow time to ensure they have each followed the instructions. As time progresses, start scaling back the support and the students will hopefully follow the method independently.
Managing Time: Practice having students estimate the amount of time a given task will take. Once the students have finished that task, have them reflect on their estimation versus reality and how to make those numbers equal.
Managing Language: Provide note-taking templates and structures for outlining written compositions, so that students know exactly what information they are looking for.
Managing Emotion: Consider exploring simple meditation tactics to reduce stress and manage emotions before beginning lessons.
Managing Effort: Have students reflect on their behavior and effort. Use this reflection to drive conversations around where the student is doing well and how s/he could improve. This could be done within the class daily or even weekly.
Self-Advocating: Provide students with structured supports, including scripting, to show them how to communicate appropriately by giving them the correct language. Brainstorm this process together and supply insight to why or how certain ways of communicating may be more efficient.
References:
Barkley, R.A. (2012). Executive functions: what they are, how they work, and why they evolved. Guilford Press.
Brown, T.E. (2007). A new approach to attention deficit disorder. Educational Leadership. 64, 22-27.
Dawson, P.,& Guare, R. (2018). Executive skills in children and adolescents: a practical guide to assessment and intervention. Guilford Press.
Newhall, P.W. (2014). Executive function: foundations for teaching and learning. Landmark School Outreach Program.
