What are Executive Function Skills?
Research data from the field of educational psychology shows that students with strong executive function skills are more successful both academically and socially. However, most of today's literature on the subject focuses on students with disabilities. While inarguably an important segment of students, there are few resources for strategies to help students who are otherwise not learning-disadvantaged but still struggle. These students go unnoticed usually because they are strong in areas like flexibility and behavior control that they can hide their frustrations with other areas like time-management or organization.
By understanding how executive functions affect learning, teachers can implement simple strategies to help all students. But depending on where you look, there can be anywhere from three to twelve (or more) EF skills to look for. So what exactly are executive function skills? I rely on the work of Sharon A Hansen, a National Board Certified school counselor with degrees in developmental psychology and education. If anyone knows how EF skills affect students in the classroom, I would think it's her. The following infographic breaks down eleven EF skills using simple questions.
Click on the image to view the pdf version.
If you want to get a little deeper, consider getting her book, Executive Functioning Workbook for Teens. Designed to help teenagers identify EF skills issues and develop strategies to improve them, the easy explanations and guidance is helpful for anyone, including educators, to identify and address EF issues and improve learning.
Banner image by ElasticComputeFarm from Pixabay