Executive
Functioning
I
have long been interested in how Executive Functioning, or the
ability to plan, organize, problem-solve, strategize, and inhibit
undesirable responses, impacts both children and adults.
We
need to credit Stuss and Benson (1986) for giving us possibly
the most comprehensive definition of Executive Functioning. They
detailed issues such as Planning and Sequencing, Paying attention
to several different components at once, Grasping the gist of
a situation, Resisting distraction and interference, Inhibiting
inappropriate response tendencies, and Sustaining behavioral output
for a sustained period of time. Harris (1991) discussed self-regulation,
set-maintenance, selecting, prioritizing, organizing time and
space, selective inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and output
efficiency. Russell Barkley (1997) gave us a simple but truly
elegant definition: "Those self-directed actions of the individual
that are being used to self-regulate". Personally I like:
POPSI: Plan, Organize, Problem-solve, Strategize, and Inhibit
undesirable responses. Regardless of how you want to think about
executive functioning, almost all will agree it has enormous influence
on how we function in life.
I
began my interest in executive functioning with my training in
neuropsychology and my work with ADHD Children in the early 1980's.
In
the late 1980's, when I began working with many autistic spectrum
disordered children, I began seeing how important executive functioning
was in their lives, in particular, with high functioning autistic
spectrum disordered children and Aspergers Disorder children.
In the 1990's, I became interested in variations in learning,
and so often executive functioning played a role here as well.
When I began doing Executive Coaching in 2001, I realized that
many adults had very well developed executive functioning skills,
but there were other things missing.
With
the WISC IV revisions of 2003, and the beginning move away from
the ability-achievement discrepancy model, I became confident
that executive functioning would now move into the mainstream
of educators' thinking. This is so important because without it,
the long established ability-achievement discrepancy model relies
upon a faulty premise, that is, a wait to fail mentality.
The
WISC IV has an increased emphasis on Fluid Reasoning and Working
Memory, and a more clear mandate to look at how the child got
the answer. This will eventually force educators to begin to look
at the pre-referral side of special education. The WISC IV abandoned
a Verbal IQ and a Performance IQ, and now looks at 4 Indexes:
Verbal Comprehension Index, Perceptual Reasoning Index, Working
Memory and Processing Speed Index. These four indices contribute
to a Full Scale IQ Score. And so, now that David Wechsler is adopting
executive functioning constructs as central to assessing intelligence,
I believe executive functioning will come into the mainstream
of educators' thinking.
This
all became crystal clear to me when my son, Jacob, went through
the college application process this past year, and despite being
an all around outstanding young man with high SAT's, a 95 point
GPA, excellent scores on all five of his AP exams, and being named
as an honorable mention linebacker on the local football team
(NCN Westchester), he certainly showed me how a very smart kid
can have some deficits in executive functioning. I recalled that
in the NY Times this past summer (08/26/03) Martha Denckla, M.D.,
was quoted "What fascinates me is kids who go off to school
with perfect SAT's and then flunk out because there is too little
structure for their scattered minds. She says, "On your own"
is a death knell for these kids." I have tried to prepare
my son, but we will see.
April
2004
