Welcome back to our Executive Functioning series where we have been examining some of the roles that executive functioning can play in our lives and some approaches we can take to working on our executive functioning across settings and skill levels. 

In Part 1 we shared some examples of executive functioning at home. 

In Part 2 we focused on goals related to executive functioning skills as they apply at school. 

In Part 3 we are taking a closer look at executive functioning as we might practice it across a variety of support needs.

While there may be some variance between the types of executive functioning skills we want to practice across support needs and the ways we use those skills might vary in scope, executive functioning still plays a role in every person’s life, and everyone can benefit from opportunities to hone executive functioning skills that most directly impact their lives. 

So let’s look at some examples of commonalities across executive functioning that can be adjusted to a variety of needs!

We all approach our day to day tasks a little differently, and we also have the potential to benefit from a wide variety of potential tools depending on our needs. 

Consider a daily living task like brushing our teeth. For some people the most helpful tools might assist with the working memory needed to use the optimal brushing technique, while others might need tools that help them consistently complete that task as part of their routine. 

Likewise, even among tools there is potential for getting even more specific in what will best help us meet our task at hand. If an aid for working memory is a helpful tool, is a visual aid most helpful? Or a list of steps? Or perhaps a way to easily access a visual demonstration like a video or modeling? 

These are things that we and the people supporting us should be considering as we work on executive functioning skills, and in particular developing a willingness to both try new tools and determine when a particular tool isn’t quite the right fit for us.

Time has different demands on all of us. Some people have schedules packed full of obligations to colleagues/acquaintances/friends while others might have schedules focused on their own activities and goals. 

No matter what you hope to do with your time, learning time management and knowing how long things will take is incredibly valuable in its own right. 

One way to consider time management across support needs is to consider where the person in question is most often engaging in self-determination. 

If a student for example decides on what activities they want to do during the day, a good time management skill worth practicing is learning how long those activities take so they can accurately estimate what activities they have time for and set their priorities accordingly.

Much like time management and identifying tools, the exact nature of our goals might vary from person to person but goals can also be incredibly flexible to reflect the needs and preferences of the person setting them. 

Goals can vary in both complexity and the amount of time we intend to work toward a goal. If you are just starting to work with a particular student a great starting point can be establishing some short term goals to see how working toward them plays out, and getting more complex from there. 

This can be a helpful strategy across skill levels because short term goals can set us up for success and help us focus on the goal setting component to start without worrying as much about measuring progress. But that’s not to say we want to avoid measuring progress forever!

Just as important as setting goals is knowing whether or not we are meaningfully advancing toward our goals and making adjustments if necessary. 

Much like with goal setting, if we are in the process of determining what types of measuring progress might be best for a particular student’s needs, a great place to start can be with short term goals. How do we definitively know a given goal has been accomplished? Sometimes the answer to that question is obvious, other times it is more abstract and we might need to find a particular mode of measurement. 

As our goals get more complex, we can move beyond how we know when we have met our goal and think about how we can keep track of our progress toward more complex and/or long term goals.

We hope this post has helped spur some thinking on some broad ways to begin working on executive functioning skills across a variety of needs and support levels! 

If you have experience working with students on executive functioning or want to see us cover this topic more in depth then we’d love to hear from you! Just drop us a line at hello@autismgrownup.com and we will be wrapping up this series (for now!) next week in part 4 as we focus on executive functioning in high school with an eye toward preparing for college.