Executive Function Therapy for Middle and High School Students

The executive function skills including attentional control, cognitive flexibility, self-regulation, inhibition, strategic planning, and impulse control support learning, academic achievement, and behavioral competence.   Executive function skills play a critical role in a student's cognitive and social functioning and develop throughout childhood, concurrent with a number of developmental transitions and challenges.  Some of these challenges are the transition from elementary to middle school and middle school to high school.   These school transitions require cognitive and behavioral adjustment and often it involves not only a physical change in location (often to a whole new school setting), but also changes in instructional format, a more complex schedule, increases in the number of teachers, decreases in perceived teacher/parent support, increases in class sizes, changes in peer groups, and increased expectations for individual responsibility.

​

There is the expectation that students can with greater independence plan, start and complete tasks on and within time demands. They need to be able to follow multi-step directions, identify and keep track of materials as they transition in and between classes and to and from school.  As students mature, they are expected to with increasing independence to record, track and turn in homework assignments.   Not only do they need to manage an increase in the volume of homework, but as they mature through the grades, homework may not just be due the next day, but is due in several days or over several weeks.  Oh, and not to mention some students may have to balance these demands with sports, music, extracurricular and other social activities! Their schedule during the day can be busy, complex, and structured while at the same time they might have blocks of free time.  Students must plan, prioritize and remember steps and actively initiate/motivate and minimize procrastination to use these periods of free time effectively.  It is a lot to track! How can students learn to manage their impulses (not respond to every phone notification or play that video game), delay immediate gratification (watch the latest episode on Netflix), and just get to work?

​

While parents may play a large supervisory role over homework and materials in elementary school, there is more of a 'hands off' expectation as students transition into middle school and especially through high school.  Students need to learn to regularly  'self-check' and be aware of how they are doing in school, recognize if they need help or are behind, and then know how and when to ask for extra support.  As assignments become more open-ended, multi-step, or complicated students can feel overwhelmed.  If one approach to an assignment is not working, kids need to be flexible to shift direction and or consider alternative approaches.  Although adolescence is a time when students push to be as independent as possible, those with lagging executive function skills may still require someone to play a supervisory role and help break down and monitor task completion.  

​

Similarly, in elementary school, the number of students assigned to a teacher is often less making it easier for the teacher to observe, model, and teach executive function skills.  However, at the secondary level teachers may have multiple classes and a higher number of total students (120+). Teachers may assume students are coming into middle and high school having learned how to set goals, plan and prioritize tasks, organize their time, materials, and information, and how to monitor their own progress.  Students may quickly feel overwhelmed or incompetent when they have not mastered these skills but are expected to be more independent.  While students have the academic ability, their inability to effectively use their executive skills to manage and hand in homework, organize materials, prepare for tests and meet the competing demands of multiple teachers can impact their academic progress, confidence, and self-esteem.  

​

To manage the transitions at each grade level and develop their executive function skills, it is critical students be taught as an integral part of their education, how to schedule and use a calendar to track class assignments, projects, due dates, and tests.  Students need to learn the process of planning and 'tuning in' to the passage of time to be able to self-monitor attention and minimize distractions. 

​

At Cognitive Connections, we use our 360 Thinking method to not merely compensate for, but to truly help students neurologically mature and learn the process of how to:

​