+ executive function february 23, 2015 resource teacher training karen horner
TRANSCRIPT
+
Executive Function
February 23, 2015Resource Teacher Training
Karen Horner
+Do you know anyone who is…..
Disorganized?
Not able to complete homework or assignments?
Unmotivated except when a topic interests him or her?
Rarely able to get things done?
Easily angered?
Having difficulty with social situations?
+Can’t versus won’t
Is this ‘behaviour’?
Is this an act?
Is this student just lazy?
Why can’t this bright student get assignments handed in?
… Difficulties with Executive Function may be the culprit!
+Executive Function
Executive Function is not the same as
intelligence…
…so then what is Executive Function?
+What did your brain have to do?
How different would your day have gone if your brain didn’t work in an
efficient manner?
+Executive Function
“High level cognitive functions which enable us to manage our emotions and monitor our thoughts in order to work
more efficiently and effectively….. These skills help us to regulate our
behaviour”(Dawson and Guare, 2010)
+Executive Function
Executive Skills are built in, but are not necessarily developed at birth.
+ It Starts With the Brain and Brain Development
+Prefrontal Cortex and Frontal Lobe
+How do executive skills develop?
Through a process called myelination. Myelin acts as insulation, increasing the speed with which nerve impulses are transmitted. The faster the impulse, the better the skill.
+When is brain development complete?
+A teenage brain is like a Ferrari…
+All skills, including executive skills, improve with practice…
The more you practice, the better the skill.
Practice also makes the task less effortful
+Executive Function is Like a Conductor or….
+An Air Traffic Controller
+Executive Function
The following information is from the Provincial Outreach Program for Autism
and Related Disorders (POPARD) Handout on Executive Function
Executive Function for students with Autism has been divided into two
categories:Hot Executive FunctionsCold Executive Functions
+Executive Function –
Hot Functions
“Affective, motivational processing – includes: inhibition and emotional regulation, shifting and flexibility, initiation and self monitoring
Most closely associated with behaviour and emotional regulation in social situations.”
+Executive Function –
Cold FunctionsCold Executive Functions:
“Abstract, de-contextualized processing includes cognitive tasks, such as: working memory, planning organizing, and sustaining attention
Most closely associated with academic performance in learning situations” – thinking about thinking
+8 Elements of Executive FunctionThinking About Thinking (Cold)
Behaviour Regulation (Hot)
•Initiation •Inhibition•Planning •Shifting Attention•Organization •Emotional Control•Working Memory•Monitoring•Metacognition
+Thinking About Thinking:
Task Initiation
The ability to begin projects without undue procrastination, in an efficient or timely fashion.
+Thinking About Thinking:
Planning/PrioritizationThe ability to create a roadmap to reach a goal or to complete a task.
It also involves being able to make decisions about what’s
important to focus on and what’s not important.
+Thinking About Thinking:
Organization
The ability to design and maintain systems for keeping track of
information or materials.
+Thinking About Thinking:
Working Memory
The ability to hold information in mind while performing complex tasks. It incorporates the ability to draw on past learning or experience to apply to the situation at hand or to project into the future.
+Thinking About Thinking: Monitoring/ MetacognitionThe ability to stand back and take a
bird’s eye view of oneself in a situation. It is an ability to observe how you problem solve. It also
includes self-
monitoring and self-evaluative skills.
+Thinking About Thinking:
Time ManagementThe capacity to estimate how
much time one has, how to allocate it, and how to stay within time limits and deadlines. It also
involves a sense that time is important
+Behaviour Regulation:
Flexibility
The ability to revise plans in the face of obstacles, setbacks, new
information or mistakes. It relates to an adaptability to changing
conditions.
+Behaviour Regulation:
Sustaining Attention
The capacity to attend to a situation or task in spite of
distractibility, fatigue, or boredom
+Behaviour Regulation:
Response InhibitionThe capacity to think before you act. This ability to resist the urge to say or do something allows us the time to evaluate a situation and how our behaviour might
impact it.
+Behaviour Regulation:
Emotional Control (Also called self-regulation
or affect)
The ability to manage emotions in order to achieve goals, complete
tasks, or control and direct behaviour.
+Executive Function and the Impact on Learning, Behaviour and Socialization ADHD
Learning Disabilities
Autism
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Depression
Head Injuries
Etc…..
+What Do Executive Skill Weaknesses Look Like in Students?• Ask without thinking • Easily over-stimulated and has
trouble calming down
Interrupts others Gets stuck on one topic or activity
Overreacts to small problems Gets overly upset about :little things:
Upset by change in plans Out of control more than peers
Overwhelmed by large assignments
Can’t come up with more than one way to solve a problem
Talks or plays too loudly Low tolerance for frustration
Doesn’t notice impact of behavior on others
Acts wild or out of control
Don’t see their behavior as part of the issue
+What Do Executive Skill Weaknesses Look Like in Students? Doesn’t write down assignments Forgets homework/forgets to
pass it in Forgets directions Leaves long-term assignments or
chores until the last minute Forgets to bring materials home Can’t break down long-term
assignments Runs out of steam before
finishing work Sloppy work
Choose “fun stuff” over homework or chores
Messy notebooks
Passive study methods (or doesn’t study)
Loses or misplaces things (books, papers, notebooks, mittens, keys, cell phone, etc.)
Can’t find things in backpack
+What Do Executive Skill Weaknesses Look Like in Students on ASD Spectrum?
Overreacts to small problems Gets stuck on one topic or activity
Upset by changes in plans Gets overly upset about ‘little things’
Overwhelmed by large assignments
Out of control more than peers
Resists change of routine Can’t come up with more than one way to solve a problem
Doesn’t notice impact of behavior on others
Low tolerance for frustration
Don’t see their behavior as part of the issue
+What Do Executive Skill Weaknesses Look Like in Students on ASD Spectrum?
Difficulty With: Monitoring
behaviour/performance/emotions
Regulating behaviour/emotions
Inhibiting automatic/overlearned responses
Shifting from one task/situation to another
Flexible problem solving Changing expectations Adapting to change Planning/organizing an
activity Applying past learning to
new situations
+3 Key Strategies for Managing Executive Skill Weaknesses
Intervene at the level of the environment
Intervene at the level of the child by:1. Teach the student the weak skill2. Motivate the student to use the skill
+3 Primary Ways Adults Can Help Students with Weak Executive Skills
1. Change the environment both to reduce the impact of weak executive skills and encourage the use of executive skills.
2. Help the student learn and practice executive skills.
3. Use incentives to help students to use skills that are hard for them.
+Move from External to Internal:Critical Dimensions
EXTERNAL INTERNAL
CHANGE CHANGE
ENVIRONMENT STUDENT
EXTERNAL CUE SELF-CUE
+Executive Function
How do you support a student with Executive Function deficits?
……Be their ‘external brain’!
+Executive Function
When planning to accommodate for deficits in these areas it helps to
determine which executive function is being challenged and based on that,
what would be the best intervention to support the need
*
+Prevent
1. Change the Environment
2. Adapt the Task
3. Provide cues
4. Provide modeling
+1. Change the Environment
Start here
Changes depend on the area of need
Impose structure
E.g. messy desk due to organizational problems
Text books kept on the shelf not in desk, binder system
+Environmental Modifications
Task domain/Executive
Skills
Classroom/Home Support
Change the social environment
- Response inhibition- Emotional control
• Reduce social complexity (e.g. fewer kids, more adults, supervision on playground, structured play vs. free play)
• Change the ‘social mix’ (seating arrangements in class, special table in cafeteria)
+Environmental Modifications
Task domain/Executive
Skills
Classroom/Home Support
Change the physical environment
-Response inhibition-Sustained attention-Task initiation-Organization
• Add barriers (gates, laws)• Seating arrangements
(e.g. place distractible kids near teacher, away from windows)
• Reduce distractions (e.g. music as white noise)
• Use organizing structures (e.g. clear plastic containers with labels, consistent space on blackboard for writing homework
+Environmental Modifications
Task domain/Executive
Skills
Classroom/Home Support
Modify tasks
-Sustained attention-Task initiation-Working memory-Flexibility-metacognition
• Make tasks shorter or build in breaks along the way
• Make steps more explicit
• Help kids track time
+Response Inhibition
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Increase external controls
• Cue the child (external to internal)
• Restrict access • Teach wait/stop• Post home or
classroom rules and review regularly
• Teach delayed gratification
+The Marshmallow Experiment
The Zimbardo Experiment
+Working Memory
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
Use orthotic memory devicesPrinciple of ‘off-loading’
• Directions/Past experience (prompt them to access it)
• Agenda books/calendars • Generate options and have them choose (or elicit options from student)
• Notebooks (to do lists) • Mentally rehearse association between cue and working memory
• Electronic devices & apps (iPad, iPhone)
+Emotional Control
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Reduce or eliminate triggers
• Teach kids to recognize situations or early signs
• Give child a script to follow
• Graded exposure/guided mastery
• Remove student from problem situation
• Teach coping strategy
• Rehearse the strategy repeatedly until it is internalized
+Flexibility
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Limit flexibility demand • Increase support
- reduce novelty - highlight similarities - provide a template - put in place a default strategy - turn open-ended tasks into closed-ended tasks - make steps more explicit - normalize errors
- present expectations - walk them through the task - give plans or rules for managing situations - think aloud
+Sustained Attention
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Reduce distractions • Teach self-monitoring/peer coaching
• Prompt to attend (look, listen, respond)
• Have the student identify something to look forward to
• Modify/limit task length or demand (end in sight)
• Build in variety/choice
• Choose best time of day
• Immediately reinforce
+Task Initiation
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Provide cues/prompts • Have the student select cueing system
• Reduce perceived effort/task demand
• Help the student limit initial demand
• Walk through first step – build behavioural momentum
• Help the child select reinforcer
• Make help readily available
• Help the child make a plan for doing the task
• Establish set time to do non-preferred tasks
+Planning/Prioritization
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Demonstrate what a plan is
• Walk through the planning process
• Help student design a plan/template
• Have them apply plan to a simple task and gradually prompt kids to do more of the planning themselves
• Provide planning tools (calendar, agenda, apps)
• Ask questions to get kids to prioritize (What do you need?, What should you do first?)
+Organization
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Demonstrate principle of off-loading the example from their lives
• Help them walk through the process. Have them motorically practice it (a long-term process, requiring that they put a system in place that’s monitored, initially on a daily basis)
• Work with them to create scheme, template or picture
• Ask students to evaluate current systems and challenge them to improve them
• Show organizational tools and have them try them out
+Time Management
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
Make schedules and time limits explicit
Help kids learn what time means (time gaps in behavioral contingency)
Work with kids to make a schedule to follow and prompt each step of the way•Picture schedules•Clocks, alarms•Tablet/phone apps•Timers
Show them ways to mark time and let them practice
Practice how to estimate how long it takes to do something
Help them to follow schedules (daily events to homework plans)
+Goal-Directed Persistence
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Establish goals with kids • Point out to kids how they already set goals but they may not know what they are. Define goals as something that people want to get better at or to change
• Reward kids for persistence (sticking with difficult tasks)
• Ask kids to set small, achievable goals, or a goal for something they want to do outside of school or set class goals
• Make sure the goal or benchmark is in sight
+Metacognition
Environmental Modification
Teaching Strategy
• Specify what is to be evaluated and how (goal or objective)
• Help student on how performance will be evaluated
• Evaluate performance for the student
• Have the student evaluate her performance
• Provide sample to match or error-monitoring checklist
• Compare evaluations
• Teach students to ask questions
- What’s my problem? - What’s my plan? - Am I following my plan? - How did I do?
+After the Fact…
Label what the student did well
Talk about the situation (s)
Ask for feedback from others
+More Strategies
Break complex tasks down into manageable tasks with deadlines
Goal Estimated Time Needed: Start Date__/__/__Deadline Date __/__/__
Done
1.
2.
+Resources…
See Resources Handout for more ideas
First Class – Special Programs – Resources – Executive Function