Executive Functioning: What is it?
How often has your child come to you on a school night and said, “Mom, I need 4 dozen cookies tomorrow for the Valentine’s Party.” You just look at them, wondering how you will pull this off and why the teacher didn’t send a note home. You look in the abyss known as your child’s backpack. You find the note from the teacher asking for the cookies among the number of papers and an empty bag of hot Cheetos.
This is just one of several examples of low executive functioning skills. These underdeveloped executive functioning skills can be seen in adults if not addressed
Executive Functioning Skills
Our brain is made up of multiple areas, each responsible for different functions of our body. The prefrontal cortex, located behind your forehead, is responsible for daily skills and continues to form, develop, and mature until about 25-30.
Three parts of Executive Functioning
Executive Functioning can be divided into three main sections.
The first is emotional regulation or inhibitory control, the next is cognitive flexibility, and the last is working memory. These three areas are responsible for organization, planning, prioritizing, completing tasks, self-control and self-monitoring, and problem-solving
Have you seen a child or adult who completely loses control over a small thing, like being asked to do a simple task? You are seeing a lack of emotional regulation or inhibitory control. Every day, we face challenges, demands, and requests. When there is an underdevelopment of emotional regulation, regardless of age, the person may think before they speak or act and curb behavior they know is wrong. If there is a lack of control in the area of attention, it can be seen as not being able to focus, concentrate, or pay attention.
How many times in a day do you find yourself needing to move between tasks and see things from another perspective? When a person has substantial development in the area of cognitive flexibility, they can adapt or switch between mental tasks, see things from another point of view, take in new information, and use it. This skill is also observed when someone can find a way to succeed despite unexpected problems or seamlessly adjust to change unexpectedly.
Have you gone to the grocery store to pick up a few things but forgot to write them down? You get four of the five things you need, and then your phone rings from your friend. Now you have to remember what the last thing I needed was. Having the ability to hold information and work with it is working memory. Within school or the work environment, remembering multi-step instructions and executing them or waiting to ask a question in the middle of a conversation without forgetting are examples of a strong working memory.
As I write this, I am thinking about any number of students, family members, and co-workers who have struggled with different aspects of executive functioning and those who have excelled with these skills. I remember two different co-workers with advanced degrees and ADHD. One would get frustrated and yell at me and others in the work environment. The other would get off task, but I never saw them lose their cool or yell at coworkers. I say this to show how underdeveloped executive functioning skills can vary based on the person and the training they received.
One of the things my mom has said that I have shared with others is that we are presented with lessons every day. When we learn that lesson, another one is presented to us. If we don’t learn the lesson one day, it will be presented again in a different form until we do learn the lesson. How that ties to executive functioning skills is this: if we can see the different deficits of broad skills known as executive functioning, we can write IEP behavior goals that systematically target this in the schools. As parents, we can work on those skills in the home through different activities. The key is that the child is still learning, with school and home as safe places to make mistakes. If the skills deficit is not identified until later in life, improvements can be made, but it must be done intentionally and maybe with assistance from another professional.
The brain is a very complex organ, and humans are incredibly resilient and have endless possibilities for growth. Understanding the incredible depth of executive functioning goes beyond these few paragraphs. Additional information will be shared about how executive functioning impacts disabilities and suggestions to level the playing field.