PIC/Family Voices Podcast Episode 28: Understanding Executive Functioning: Signs, Support & Strategies

Emily Woodward (00:02.126)
Today’s guest, Dan Chick, is a New Hampshire High School special education teacher, executive functioning coach, and the owner of Lifelong Learners. Dan has more than a decade of experience supporting students who struggle with organization, time management, and completing tasks. Today, Dan will discuss how executive functioning challenges can impact students both in the classroom and in everyday life, how to recognize the signs and practical strategies to help students build and strengthen these important skills.

Welcome, Dan.

Dan Chick (00:34.143)
Happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk about executive functioning. It’s something that’s really picked up on like people getting interested in it and how it’s impacting their child, but it’s certainly not something that everybody knows about yet. So I’m excited to talk to you guys about it today, how it impacts school and  also everyday life.

Emily Woodward (00:58.552)
For listeners who may not be familiar quite yet with the term, what is executive functioning and why is it so important for students?

Dan Chick (01:06.027)
Yeah, so executive functioning is really the skills behind completing a task. So when we talk about executive functioning, we’re really talking about skills that help us keep track of what we need to do, make a plan, get started, stay focused, manage our time, follow through, get things done. So these are skills that we use every day. So for example, like if a student for school example, if a student has a reading assignment that they have to read a short passage and then write a reflection, a couple paragraphs. They might be able to read and write at grade level, but they might struggle to complete the assignment because there’s a lot of other things that need to happen to complete the assignment. Remembering what to do, remembering where the assignment is and where all the materials are that you need to complete it, understanding the directions, making a plan of when they’re going to complete their work, breaking up that work into smaller pieces, actually the act of getting started, staying focused on that assignment, keeping track of materials, and then also finishing and turning it in. So knowing and having strong academic skills is a key piece to doing well in school, but also having these other skills in place is are very important as well.

Emily Woodward (02:27.167)
As you mentioned, there are just so many steps involved to get to the end goal with most tasks. What are some of the key executive functioning skills students use every day, both in and out of the classroom?

Dan Chick (02:40.617)
Yeah, so there’s planning and time management. So knowing what they need to do and when they’re gonna do it. There’s organization, which is helping them keep track of where everything is. Task initiation is a big one. That’s your ability to actually get started and get going on a task. Working memory is remembering all the steps and directions needed to complete a task.  Attention and self-regulation is just whether or not you can actually stay engaged with with what you’re doing and not be distracted by other things going on, such as technology or peers. Flexibility is your ability to kind of adjust if you get stuck, but then also adjust to unexpected changes in your schedule. And then the last one that’s typically the most difficult for students to master is metacognition. That’s for them to be able to reflect on how they’re doing with something, and seeing whether or not they need to change it and how they’re currently working on and and developing a skill.

Emily Woodward (03:44.91)
So there’s really a lot that goes into executive functioning, but essentially it’s about identifying the smaller steps involved and breaking down the larger task into more manageable pieces. What might executive functioning challenges look like in the classroom and how can they impact the student’s academic performance?

Dan Chick (04:04.329)
Yeah, so often it will look like students waiting till the last minute to get started on something, losing papers or other materials they need to complete assignments, forgetting the directions that a teacher may have just given them, not knowing exactly where to start, and looking like they either feel overwhelmed or maybe like they look like they feel like they just don’t care, but it’s more so that they don’t know where to start. Missing assignments, even though that they’ve completed the work, they forget to hand it in or they lose that assignment, becoming overwhelmed by larger assignments. So really I think an important takeaway though is that it doesn’t necessarily mean that the student doesn’t care or that they’re not capable. It means that there are some other skills potentially outside of their academic skills that they still need to fully develop or more fully develop in order to better demonstrate their understanding of a given topic.

Emily Woodward (05:07.884)
That makes a lot of sense. Considering that adults sometimes have a difficulty with staying on task and eliminating distractions that we can find with children that can be even more important. Why might a student understand what they are supposed to do but still struggle to get started or stay organized or complete the task?

Dan Chick (05:29.173)
Yeah. I so I would certainly say that like, you know, sometimes we can see that a student is really struggling on an assignment and often parents will think or teachers might think that the student’s not motivated and they’re struggling to get going on that assignment because they don’t seem to care. But it it’s not necessarily the case. It’s more so that like they don’t understand what the directions are, or potentially they don’t remember what the directions are, or maybe they’re just so overwhelmed by everything that’s going on with the assignment. So sometimes it can kind of look like the student doesn’t care and that they’re not as engaged in the assignment, whereas they sometimes they just don’t have the skills currently in place to complete them, and it’s something that those skills can be worked on, they can be developed.  But they might just need an accommodation or some sort of assistance at the time to help get them going on the assignment.

Emily Woodward (06:35.746)
You just spoke a bit about the struggles that students can deal with at school, but how can executive functioning challenges transfer over to the home life in areas such as managing routines, responsibilities, relationships, or even emotions?

Dan Chick (06:51.711)
Yeah, so a big one that that I deal with as a parent and I see have heard from many other parents that they deal with a lot is morning routine and trying to get out the door in the morning, right? So there’s typically a lot to do for everyone to get where they need to go in a certain amount of time between waking up and doing everything you have to do to get ready.  That that’s a big piece where parents might see it just because there is a time crunch there and there’s a lot of time management and planning and organization that go into to doing that successfully. And there’s a lot of adults that that aren’t even successful with that. But that can certainly cause stress between parents and their child, as well as like things for extracurriculars, like remembering all their equipment. So oftentimes as a teacher, I’ve had many times where students had to go down to the office because their parents have had to drop off their school uniform or something like that because they had left it on the counter or in their bedroom the morning before. So students can struggle to keep track of their belongings, keeping their room clean is one that I often hear, and it can be difficult to be productive if that’s where their working environment is at home, if it’s not well organized or at least in a situation where it’s at least manageable to get some work done in. So really, it’s just a matter of them managing their responsibilities as well outside of school. So like high schoolers managing work, managing sports, other extracurriculars that they have to do. And sometimes you also might see difficulties when there’s adjustments in the schedule and having to make changes. So there’s certainly many other examples in in addition to that, but I think that kind of demonstrates that these are both real life skills, right? As well as skills that are needed in order to be successful in school.

Emily Woodward (08:52.94)
A lot of what you just mentioned definitely hits home with a lot of parents who know the morning struggle with trying to get out of the house in the morning and then a student might be forgetting those last minute things, whether it’s a sweatshirt or a homework assignment. How are executive functioning skills connected to a student’s confidence and motivation and overall well being?

Dan Chick (09:14.303)
Yeah, so if a student is repeatedly just hearing that they need to try harder or that the you know that they should be getting this by now, they’re going to start to just simply think that they’re bad at school. And that that might not be the case. It’s just that they need to continue to work on and develop skills that are going to allow them to be more successful. So if we’re able to focus more on small wins and then building progress because it’s not going to go from absolutely no organization in a cluttered backpack with just papers crumpled up and in there to all of a sudden to a great binder system where they’re keeping track of everything and using an agenda book every day. So it needs to be built upon over time and we can focus on small wins. I’m really a big proponent of finding a system that works best for the student.  So really it can be difficult. A lot of times, either parents or teachers will think, you know, let’s just go with a system that that works best for them, right? So the teacher’s trying to teach the student or the parents trying to teach their child, a system that works well for them. But we really have to think about what is a system that the child is most likely to use and that that is gonna they’re gonna follow through with. Like, so for example, I like to talk about like using binders versus folders to help keep students organized. Typically binders are a better way to stay organized and keep track of everything that that you need. But a student that struggles with executive functioning is going to have a lot more trouble maintaining and keeping track of the binder because there’s a lot more steps to putting the papers in the correct spot where they need to go. Whereas with a folder they just need to put the piece of paper in the folder. Now there’s a lot of other management that goes with that if the folder’s getting overloaded with papers.  But that that is something that they are more likely to use. So that would typically be a system that I would try to focus more so in on to help build those small wins and build that confidence and motivation over time. But the key thing is is the student also has to be willing to try some new strategies. But again, that that’s something that motivation, that confidence can be built upon, given the proper incentives as well as motivation.

Emily Woodward (11:37.314)
Those are great tips. Do you have any other practical strategies that teachers can use in the classroom to help students strengthen their executive functioning skills?

Dan Chick (11:45.833)
Yeah. So if teachers are able to explicitly teach the skills that they want students to utilize rather than just assuming that they know them, right? So a lot of times difficulties with executive functioning show up in transition years, whether that’s going from elementary to middle, middle to high school, high school to college. And often in those transitions, teachers at that next level up assume that students have developed skills at at a younger age, right? So I’ve spent a lot of time working in high school. And at that point, a lot of teachers do assume that students know how to take notes when they’re there and they know how to study, but some students just haven’t learned how to do that. So if teachers can take time at the beginning of the year and explicitly show, like, this is how you should take notes in my class and even have a lesson on that. And these are effective ways to study for my assessments. So that way the student can actually get a lesson and get direct instruction and what is going to be the best way to prepare for their class. And it’s helpful to have that in each class because what’s needed to take notes and study in an English class is different than from what it is in a math class. So so that piece of it can be really important. Keeping assignments and information in a consistent location, making sure that the students at the beginning of the year again don’t assume they know how to access and utilize your Google Classroom page or Schoology or whatever system it is that your school may use. Different teachers set up their pages in different ways, and you want to make sure students know how to access that information. If you can post schedules around the room, visual directions that will help with transitions, that helps students build on their estimating time skills. Using things like timers and time estimates can help students with plan for planning purposes and time management purposes. And then if you notice that a student struggling with something, you know, pulling them in for opportunities for small group instruction, even if it’s struggling with their organization, struggling with their time management, if you can take that five minutes to work with them and get them set up in a better situation, that’s going to provide them an opportunity for success going forward. And the really the goal isn’t to be doing things for them.

It’s to give them the skills so that they can build greater independence, but you really have to be able to meet the student where they’re at in order for them to be able to build progress.

Emily Woodward (14:18.104)
Those are all really great tips that would be very helpful in the classroom. Now kind of looking at the other direction for the home, what can parents and caregivers do at home to support the development of these skills while still encouraging independence?

Dan Chick (14:34.985)
Yeah. So I would say a lot of times for kids that struggle with the executive functioning, a lot of what parents will do is they’ll try to do the executive functioning for their child, right? So they’ll keep track try to keep track of everything for them. But we want to make sure that they’re helping them develop those skills and they might need some assistance, but they’re not doing all the executive functioning for them or else they’re not going to necessarily grow in that area. And I’ve seen that a lot with college students that I work with. Once that support gets moved away, you know, and they’re required to be a lot more independent because they’re on their own in college, that’s when and students can start to suffer. So but another piece too that I often hear from parents is that it’s a fight, you know, when they’re trying to help their students with executive functioning. So some things that they can do, is rather than immediately telling their child what to do, is asking them questions. So such as, what do you have for homework tonight? Which I’m sure the the most often response to that is nothing. Just asking, okay, is there somewhere where we can check just to make sure, which typically students, if they’re even if they’re not using an agenda book or not using some sort of a planner, which the goal would be to get them there, but if they’re not, they can typically check on Google Classroom, check on Schoology. We can look at that. If they have things to do, rather than telling them what they should do first, asking them what their top priority is. Asking them how long they think something’s going to take them to do. If they say that they think they’re going to do their reading of 40 pages in 20 minutes before they have to go to practice, just say, okay. And then have them do that reading and then 20 minutes later say, okay, it’s time to go. And maybe they’ve only gotten through 10 pages, and then use that as a learning experience so that way they can see, okay, maybe I need a little bit more time to get through this reading assignment. Right? Asking them when their plan is to start on their work rather than telling them exactly when they have to do their work. Obviously, at younger ages, you have to manage a lot more of that, but giving them more independence on that over time can be a a key piece of that in terms of them developing those skills. So and then if we can give the student ownership over building things, right? So them coming up with their own organization system, them picking out the planner that they’re going to use rather than you buying them for them. If they’re able to build some ownership over it, they’re a lot more likely to stick with it. and then we can continuously reduce that adult support over time.

Emily Woodward (17:20.674)
Thank you. Those are great tips as well to kind of get your student more involved in the executive functioning and preparing them for a time when you’re not as quite involved in their life. If you could give students, parents, and educators one key takeaway about executive functioning, what would you want them to understand?

Dan Chick (17:40.053)
Yeah, that executive functioning skills they can be taught and typically teaching the strategy once is isn’t gonna be enough, right? So they’re not gonna master it after one time of learning how to organize, how to keep track of their assignments. It takes repeated practice, right?

In practicing these skills in the real world situations of the school year and managing their school work, right? And then just knowing that different systems work for different systems. So there’s not different systems work for different students. So there’s not a one size fit fits all answer for every single student in the class or even for every single one of your kids. If you have three kids, it’s probably going to be the case that a different type of system would work best for each one of those children. and again, the goal isn’t for adults to manage everything for their child forever. It’s to really kind of help them build on small wins. So that way they’re becoming more independent and so that they can achieve and reach their goals.

Emily Woodward (18:54.99)
That’s great. Thank you, Dan, so much for being on the podcast today and talking with us about executive functioning and what the term means, what it looks like in students and strategies that both teachers and families can use to support children who may be struggling with executive functioning skills.

Dan Chick (19:11.753)
Yeah, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about executive functioning and some of the ways we can better help and support students. For families who feel like their child needs support that’s definitely coaching and helping students develop these skills is something that I often do with middle school, high school, and college stage students, groups and programs. So there are supports that that are out there and certainly I would be happy to talk to any families about working on building these skills with their children and just thanks again for having me.

Emily Woodward (19:48.994)
Great, thank you so much.