Executive functioning skills are intrinsic to our organisational, attention, self- regulation, memory and time management abilities. In my own family, my daughter experiences specific challenges:
Organising her room and personal space
Keeping track of belongings
Packing for holidays and outings
Becoming overwhelmed by details, or focusing on details and missing the ‘big picture’
Planning time
Keeping appointments
Giving directions
Planning assignments and workload
Blurting out what is on her mind without ‘filtering’
Coping with criticism
Becoming overwhelmed with emotions
Struggling carrying out tasks under time pressure
Over the years I have seen these challenges played out in social and interpersonal settings as well as in the academic and learning environment. It took me a while to realise that playing a family game of Cluedo was a challenge. In this game, information needs to be gathered, recorded and prioritised, remembered and interpreted. Playing a large group game where she was the nominated scorer proved difficult as she had to make quick judgements about people’s actions, scan the scoreboard for names and numbers, and record accurate information all whilst under intense time pressure. Definitely not fun for someone who functions best when allowed to go slowly at their own pace.
So here are a few ideas that have helped her:
Maintaining a planner – overview of the year, months, weeks and time schedule for each day
Colour coding information in study
Colour coding subject books
Healthy diet and plenty of exercise
Taking physical breaks between study activities
Keep a list of items that need to be packed in the school bag each morning
Keep a list in the school bag of what needs to come home each night
Breaking down assignments into easy-to-manage chunks – cutting up activity sheets into single tasks, writing each
step of an assignment onto a single page
Taking the TWINK approach to assignments and motivation
Think about the task
Write down 3 steps that need to be completed
Initiate the first step
What’s Next?
Keep going!
Using mind-mapping to externally organise thoughts and ideas on a topic
Keeping ‘fiddle toys’ handy to help expend some additional energy and encourage focus
Setting family and personal routines
Helping to regulate the external time pressure
Relaxation
The internet is full of many great ideas and resources to help you organise your family life and personal time. Make use of planners, colours, visual cues, recorded information. There are strategies that can be found to support each individuals’ executive function needs. Newcastle Speech Pathology can help you find the strategies that work best for you.
Written by Alison Speech Pathologist Newcastle Speech Pathology