Executive Function Skills

Executive Function Skills by SJMS Middles School Teacher Brian Lower

Reading, Writing, Arithmetic...these are the foundations we all remember when it comes to education and school! Yet there is so much more to education than those items -- practical life skills, socialization, and a group of skills that often gets overlooked Executive Function Skills. The term Executive Function Skills or EF, has come into vogue over the last few years, yet what does EF mean and why is it so important?  

Executive Function Skills are typically identified as a series of skills that fall under three large umbrellas: Working Memory, Cognitive Flexibility, and Inhibitory Control. The actual individual skills that fall under these umbrellas include:  

  • PLANNING: ability to figure out how to accomplish your goals

  • PRIORITIZATION: placing your goals into an effective and efficient order in the manner in which they need to be accomplished

  • ORGANIZATION: ability to develop and maintain a system that keeps materials and plans organized, uses the skills of PLANNING and PRIORITIZATION as a center point

  • TIME MANAGEMENT: an individual will have an accurate understanding or ability to assess how long tasks will take to complete and using time wisely and effectively to accomplish tasks

  • TASK/S INITIATION: ability to independently start task/s when needed to. The process that allows you to start, begin, or work on a task/s even when you don’t want to. This aligns with many of the other skills including ORGANIZATION, PRIORITIZATION, PLANNING, and TIME MANAGEMENT

  • WORKING MEMORY: the mental process that allows us to learn and retain information in our mind and to use it while working

  • METACOGNITION: being aware of what you know and using that information to help you learn

  • SELF-CONTROL: ability to regulate yourself ; including your thoughts, actions, and emotions

  • ATTENTION: ability to focus your individual attention on a person or task for a period of time and shifting that attention when necessary

  • PERSEVERANCE: ability to stick with a task an not give up; especially when that task becomes difficult or challenging

  • FLEXIBILITY: ability to adapt to new situations and deal with change 

Look at it in this manner, the brain has the ability to hold onto and work with information, focus thinking, filter distractions, and switch gears like an airport with a highly effective air traffic control. Take a look at the list again and imagine trying to use all of those skills at the same time -- more and more planes coming in for a landing. Then know that children are not born with Executive Function Skills but the capacity to learn and develop those skills over time with growth and maturity. This is why the development of EFS is essential but also why it is such a challenge for parents, teachers, and the learner.

In a study done by Harvard University, The Developing Child, 2020 it was shown that there are three critical factors in assisting with a child’s development of EFS:

  • RELATIONSHIPS - starts at home but includes caregivers, teachers, peers, coaches, medical & social service professionals all of whom have an impact on EFS. It is important that these relationships model appropriate behaviors and skill sets, support the child’s efforts, provide a consistent presence that the child trusts, guide them from complete dependence to interdependence to independence, and protect them from chaos, violence, and chronic adversity because this disrupts the brain's circuits.

  • ACTIVITIES - Creating strong social connections, open-ended creative play, vigorous physical exercise which positively affects stress levels, sleep patterns, social skills, and brain development, as well increasing the complexity of these skills over the course of time to assist with development.

  • PLACES - The home, school, and other environments where children spend most of their time need to be safe and secure, the child must feel warm and welcomed, provide space for creativity, exploration, and exercise, the child's “places” must also be stable in order reduce the anxiety that comes with uncertainty and fear.

When you look at the Harvard Study it is amazing how much of the information and guidance in teaching and assisting with Executive Function Skills falls in line with the philosophies and practices of Maria Montessori and Montessori education. Again showing the power of Montessori on an engaged learner with a focused environment, strong interpersonal support, and creative curriculum on the development of Executive Function Skills.    

WORKS CITED

Armstrong, Thomas. The Power of the Adolescent Brain: Strategies for Teaching Middle and High School Students. Hawker Brownlow Education, 2017. 

“Executive Function Skills & SEL.” The Pathway 2 Success, https://www.thepathway2success.com/.

“Inbrief: Executive Function.” Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, Harvard University, 29 Oct. 2020, https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-executive-function/. 

Understood Team. “The 3 Areas of Executive Function.” Understood, 30 Mar. 2021, https://www.understood.org/articles/en/types-of-executive-function-skills. 

Cheralyn Corlett