What is Executive Functioning?

"Human Beings have a built-in capacity to meet challenges and accomplish goals through the use of high level cognitive functions called executive skills. These are the skills that help us to decide what activities or tasks we will pay attention to and which ones we will chose to override immediate demands in favor of longer-term goals. Through the use of these skills we can plan and organize activities, sustain attention, and persist to complete a task. Simply stated, these skills help us regulate our behavior." 

(Dawson, Guare Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, 2018)

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To accomplish a task, or to complete a goal it involves a number of "thinking skills": 

• Planning- the ability to create a roadmap to reach a goal or complete it. 

• Organization- The ability to create and maintain a system for keeping track of information and materials. 

• Time Management- The ability to estimate how much time something make take and the understanding that time is important. 

• Working Memory- The ability to hold information while performing complex tasks. The ability to draw upon past learning and implement it. 

• Metacognition- The ability to stand back and take a birds-eye view of oneself in a situation and ask "How am I doing? Is this working? 

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Thinking skills then relate to a set of "behaviors" that also help us achieve our goals: 

• Response inhibition

• Emotional Control

• Sustained attention

• Task initiation

• Flexibility

• Goal-directed persistence

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Using specific diagnostic questionnaires, we are able to help define areas which are strengths and areas of weakness. Using behavior modifying tools and skill development, we can help train our brains to strengthen our weaknesses and leverage our strengths to help us become the best versions of ourselves! How exciting!

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