During the past decade, brain researchers have identified a set of abilities that help us manage our time, energy, resources, and talents: these skills are called “executive functions.”   The word “executive” comes from the word “execute” or to do.  In other words, these are the skills that help us to successfully get things done. 

The good news is that weaknesses in these executive skills can be addressed!  Read on to learn more. 

Many have compared the executive functions to the CEO of a company: these skills help us efficiently and effectively manage all our other abilities.  Over the years, researchers have identified specific cognitive processes that are necessary to successfully execute daily tasks.  Each child, teen, and adult may have a unique set of executive skill strengths and weaknesses.  Understanding your and your child/teen’s specific executive skill strengths and needs can help you better understand how to help.  

Internationally known expert Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D. (2012) has defined executive functions as “self-regulation across time for the attainment of one’s goals (long-term self-interests) typically in the context of others.”  This simple yet complex definition elegantly emphasizes the importance of starting productive behaviors and stopping unproductive behaviors in order to set and achieve goals while staying connected to others.  Dr. Barkley has identified five primary executive functions as seen in this video. 

Here’s my simplified definition of executive functions:

Executive Functions help us start and stop behaviors in order to achieve goals while staying connected to others.

Depending on whose research you read, there are anywhere between 5 and 20-something executive skills. Based on Dr. Barkley’s definition and the work of Drs. Rosemary Tannock, Peg Dawson, and Lynne Meltzer, I have settled on 12 skills and I have put them into 3 main groups.

Response Inhibition & Self-Regulation

Response inhibition is the ability to think before acting and to stop unproductive behaviors.  Dr. Barkley has said (and I wholeheartedly agree) that this executive skill plays a critical role in all the other executive skills: for example, a child’s ability to “focus” or sustain attention involves inhibiting all the other distractions around her.  Barkley’s research has shown that this ability is actually the core deficit in an attention deficit disorder.

Self-regulation is the ability to think about one’s thinking, self-monitor, and self-evaluate.  Children with poor self-monitoring often struggle to know if they are on the right track when solving a problem at school and on the playground: most devastating, these kids and adults who are often brilliant in so many other ways also often struggle to pick up on social cues from their peers.

Related to response inhibition and self-regulation, are the skills of emotional control, cognitive flexibility, and social thinking:

Emotional control is closely related to response inhibition and involves the capacity to control one’s emotions in order to achieve goals, complete tasks, or manage behavior.   This executive skill is critical to developing and maintaining strong relationships.  The lack of this skill is often the most damaging to the individual and those who love and care for him.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt plans in the face of change, obstacles, setbacks, new information, and mistakes.  Children and adults who struggle with this skill can have tremendous difficulty making transitions and/or applying information learned in one setting to another setting.

Social thinking is the ability to think about what others are thinking about you while thinking about whether your actions (words and deeds) help or hinder your ability to stay connected to others. Simply stated, those who struggle with this skill often miss social cues, struggle to make friends, and have difficulty keeping friends. This is an over-simplification of a complex skill

Sustained Attention and Company

Sustained attention is the ability to maintain attention to a specific situation or task in spite of distractions, poor mental energy, fatigue or boredom.   This skill is often misunderstood because of the terms we have used to describe it: for example, “attention deficit” makes it sound as if the individual cannot pay attention to anything when, in fact, we pay attention to everything.  Sustained attention is really about maintaining attention to the right thing at the right time.

Working memory is the capacity to hold information in mind while performing complex tasks.  This skill is important for following multiple step instructions and solving complex multifaceted math procedures and problems.  Working memory is largely responsible for the learning challenges children and teens with executive functioning problems can experience.  Research has consistently shown that working memory is directly affected by poor sustained attention.

Organization is the ability to create and maintain systems to keep track of information or materials.  Over the years, I have seen problems with organization keep thousands of smart people from experiencing their full potential.  In today’s face-paced world, organizational systems are critical to success in school, business, and life. In order to get and stay organized, one must maintain strong sustained attention. Many of us get busy and forget to stay organized: in the end we easily lose important information and materials.

Time, Timing, and Timeliness

Time management involves estimating how much time one has and how to best allocate it in order to stay within time limits/deadlines for achieving goals.  Kids and adults who struggle with time management often arrive late to class, practice, dinner dates, and meetings because they just “lost track of time.”  Time management involves a number of subskills including planning/prioritizing, task initiation, and goal-directed persistence.

Planning and prioritizing are necessary to complete a task, finish a project, or reach a goal.   Operating without a plan is like driving in foreign, unfamiliar territory without a map: it’s easy to get lost and you can spend a lot of valuable time driving in circles getting nowhere fast.

Task initiation is the ability to begin a task in an efficient and timely manner without procrastinating.  For those of us who struggle with this skill, our brain actually tricks us into thinking that we work best when we are under the pressure of meeting a deadline at the last-minute: stress produces adrenalin which produces the exact chemicals our brain needs to pay attention to the right thing at the right time.  Unfortunately,  this additional stress and adrenalin are not good for our bodies.

Goal-directed persistence involves the ability to follow through to completion of a goal, while not being distracted by competing events.  These competing activities are often good things, but they are not the things that will help an individual reach his or her goals.  Spending time completing unfinished chores around the house is a good thing unless you really need to be finishing an important project for school.

Good News about Executive Functions!

Children and Teens can benefit from developing executive skills utilizing research-based practices developed by educators at the New Hampshire Center for Learning and Attention Disorders, the Research Institute for Learning and Attention, and the University of Toronto have shown that these skills can be developed in children and teens using a variety of approaches. Our approach with students is based on research completed by educators Lynn Meltzer, Ph.D., Rosemary Tannock, Ph.D.,  Peg Dawson, Ed.D. and Richard Guare, Ph.D.  Click here to see how we have integrated this research into our Student Success! model for tweens, teens, and college students. 

Adults can benefit from Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) to develop executive skills as shown by clinicians and researchers at Mt. Sinai in New York. Click here to read a summary of this research-proven approach.  And then click here to see how we can help. 

Call 817.421.8780 today to see how our team can help you or your struggling loved one develop improved executive functions.  

© 2009-2014, Monte W. Davenport, Ph.D.