What is Executive Function?

Executive function is a set of mental processes that helps connect past experience with present action. People use it to perform activities such as planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention to and remembering details, and managing time and space.

If you have trouble with executive function, these things are more difficult to do. You may also show a weakness with working memory, which is like “seeing in your mind’s eye.” This is an important tool in guiding your actions.

As with other learning disabilities, problems with executive function can run in families. It can be seen at any age, but it tends to become more apparent as children move through the early elementary grades. This is when the demands of completing schoolwork independently can trigger signs of a problem with executive function.

The brain continues to mature and develop connections well into adulthood. A person’s executive function abilities are shaped by both physical changes in the brain and by life experiences, in the classroom and in the world at large. Early attention to developing efficient skills in this area can be very helpful. As a rule, it helps to give direct instruction, frequent reassurance and explicit feedback.

How Does Executive Function Affect Learning?

In school, at home or in the workplace, we’re called on all day, every day, to self-regulate behavior. Executive function allows us to:

• Make plans
• Keep track of time and finish work on time
• Keep track of more than one thing at once
• Meaningfully include past knowledge in discussions
• Evaluate ideas and reflect on our work
• Change our minds and make mid-course corrections while thinking, reading and writing
• Ask for help or seek more information when we need it
• Engage in group dynamics
• Wait to speak until we’re called on