What is the best approach for Executive Function Skill Development?

Question

Executive Function (EF) Skills cannot be taught or developed in a vacuum. Often, we see schools approaching executive function development for their students through classes on study skills, through tools such as calendars, planners, and binder, and by using templates or graphic organizers for note-taking. While these strategies are certainly helpful in developing EF skills, they all fall under what is called the "Top-Down" method of teaching. Simply put, this means that we are taking an external strategy, i.e. a planner, and pushing it down on the brain - then trying to help the student adapt their brain to using that strategy.

The problem with top-down strategies are that they do not work if they are not met with coinciding "Bottom-Up" training and development. We have all seen the student who starts the year with an organized binder, only for it to fall apart before the end of the first quarter. Or the child who gets help setting up their planner or calendar, only to slip and quit maintaining it after a couple of weeks. This is because those top-down strategies were not met with bottom-up coaching. Bottom-up coaching uses Self Determination Theory and Motivational Interviewing to tap into the student's intrinsic motivation centers of the brain, their internal drive, and provides them with the creativity and autonomy to craft their own system of external executive function strategies. Once they feel a sense of ownership over their strategies, they are able to finally embrace and MAINTAIN them over time.

In my coaching, bottom-up and top-down strategies are crafted in tandem to bolster resilience and emotional regulation as an aspect of their metacognition of overall executive functions. It produces true and long-term results rather than the quick-fix bandaid of EF taught in isolation.

Answer 1

Building good executive skills is mostly a matter of experimenting with tools and tips that can transform your habits for the better. For example, many, many of us struggle with something called task initiation. If you're too irritated to ever get started on a task, or you wait until you don't have enough time to complete it, there is no way you can do your best work and succeed. I've found something called The Pomodoro Method extremely helpful in getting started on a task at the time I know I should. (This method was invented by an Italian man, Francesco Cirillo, and it is named after the cute tomato timers Italians like to use in their kitchens!) All you have to do is set a phone timer for 25 minutes and throw yourself at the task for that short time. After the 25 minutes of focus, you're supposed to take a break, however, most times, after the time is up, people are "in the zone" and have made valuable progress toward completing the task. A 25 minute "pomodoro" can lead to a successful 2 hour writing session for me, during which I complete my daily 1,000 words and enjoy it! It's been pretty transformative in my own life, as I work on writing a book. Starting with a single "pomodoro" guarantees that I begin my writing sessions in a focused way.

Other tools and methods to explore could be putting the alarm clock across the room so you have to get out of bed to turn it off, using a planner consistently, and reading for 10 minutes a couple of times a day when you otherwise might be scrolling. I have found all of these tips and tricks helpful and enriching in my own life, and you can too! As James Clear explores in his best seller _Atomic Habits_, you start off by making manageable tweaks to your routine, and these tweaks become powerful sources of change, which can boost your performance incredibly.