Executive Function- What is it? How does it affect the learner? What can we do to help?

The term gets thrown around like everyone should know and understand what it is.  I have learned that most don't.  So let's take a few minutes and get down and dirty with executive functioning and look at how not having the skill can impact your day.  Then, we will briefly come up with a few ways to help those who struggle with it.

Executive function is our ability to make a plan, come up with the steps we need to follow the plan and then follow through with that plan.  It is our ability to figure out what we need to do to fix our breakfast or pack our lunch.  It is the ability to realize what we need to do to hang a picture or fix a clogged drain.  In our mind, we need to be able to see the whole activity, decide what we will need to complete the task, assemble the tools we need to complete that task and then see the task from beginning to end.  

I am a mother of 4 children.  I have one in elementary school, one in middle school, one in high school and one in college.  Two are in scouts, two are playing basketball, two have jobs.  We have four drivers, four cars and four school and work schedules, my husband working 30 miles north of the house and me working 25 miles south of it.  In the morning, I have to make sure I know where everyone will be for the entire day.  I make sure that everyone will have a car and a ride where ever they need to go and be picked up from. Lunch money, field trips, deadlines, gas money all have to be coordinated.  I usually have some sort of plan for dinner before I leave for work in the morning too.  Making a plan, even for a large family is usually not a problem for me.   My executive function works well.  

My husband struggles with it though.  (In the past year, with the help of the calendar on his phone, he is getting much better)  He has been called at home to see how far he is from the office because his appointment, that he forgot about, is there.  He has forgotten meetings or not realized he had people coming in.  He has traveled and not had gas money or money for lunch.  At the house, he is known for starting on a job and needing a runner to get the things he needs to complete the job because he does not have all the tools necessary.  

What does this look like for a student?  Quite honestly, it can make a normal day impossible.  I have known executive function struggles to cause such severe anxiety that it can render a person almost dysfunctional.  One student I worked with carried everything she needed for school, all day, every day in two backpacks.  She didn't use her locker.  She was afraid she would arrive at math class without her calculator or science class without her book.  She might not have put her homework for French in the correct binder, (if she had remembered to bring it to school) and would get a zero if she didn't turn it in.  A child who struggles with executive function is the one who never has binder, book, homework or pencil.  They are the student who can't do a project without 17 trips around the classroom to get each thing they need to complete it.  They are also the student who never makes it home with their homework or back to school with their book.  

So what do we do with this child to help establish habits to encourage success?  The younger the student when we realize they are struggling, the more we can offer help.  To begin with play games that encourage the use of strategy.  Games like chess and checkers, mancala... even Life, Uno and Connect 4 all require the person to think ahead, come up with a plan and then follow through with that plan to win.   Having the person help plan events will help too.  It doesn't have to be a big event, it can be as simple as going to the grocery store.  We are going to the grocery store, what do we need to do to get ready?  Have them help come up with a list.  Have them take the list and find the right coupons.  Do you need recycled bags?  

Executive function is critical to the success of a student.  The use of calendars, planners and other means of scheduling can help a lot.  Teaching them to plan and strategize also helps.  While not having it can be quite detrimental, it can be coped with utilizing tools.  

The "Disability" Label

I will have to say that from Day 1 when I heard the term 'learning disability' I have cringed. My husband and 3 of my children have auditory processing disorder.  However, They are not disabled. Their ears work just fine.  They all have average to above average intelligence levels as does every person I have met yet with APD, which means that their minds work just fine too.  To have to refer to people who don't have anything wrong with them as 'disabled' just does not work well for me.  

I am not delusional.  I know that they are at a disadvantage when it comes to learning in the traditional classroom.  I know that they are at a disadvantage when it comes to social situations and they often misinterpret what they hear in those settings.  Those with auditory processing disorders usually also struggle with short term memory, executive function, comprehension, organization and/or social situations.  But they are not disabled.  

They learn differently.  Because the traditional way in which information is obtained is difficult for them, they have learned to compensate by finding new ways to learn.  While many of us can listen to information and learn it, they have to see it, touch it, tear it apart and figure it out.  Those who learn differently have a tendency to think outside the box and can teach those who are good at traditional learning a thing or two.  NASA actually looks for people who have been diagnosed as dyslexic as they know those people have had to work exceptionally hard to get where they are and that they think outside the box.  

Personally, I am leaning towards an overall label of something like "learning differences" and then sub labels of the areas where that learner struggles.  So for my oldest son, he would be learning differences: auditory and social.  My second son has a learning difference: auditory, visual, short term memory and organization.  My husband has a learning difference, specifically he struggles with auditory, executive function and  social.  A dear friend of mine has a learning difference.  He struggles with auditory, processing and organization.  

We need to find a way to specify the exact ways in each learner needs help.  To just find one label really does not do the learner justice.  There is never just one way in which the learner is affected.  And every individual person is affected differently.  As you identify your learner, figure out the ways he/she struggles, make sure they understand and then give them the tools they need to succeed.  If they struggle with organization, find ways to help them get organized.  If they struggle with short term memory, find ways to work their memory.  The most important piece, however, is to stop calling them 'disabled' and to empower them and teach them how to make the best of the way their brain was wired and they will succeed.   

Growing Up With Prosodic Presentation of APD

When I give talks, I tell people that the prosodic presentation can be the most difficult piece of the puzzle.  My oldest has it and so does my husband.  Teddy has it too, but it looks different in him.  Prosodic means that while you are trying hard to decode exactly what words are being said, you loose the ability to decode the meaning of those words.  The question, "What are you doing?" can either be said by someone showing interest or someone who is questioning your motives.  For someone who has the prosodic presentation, the latter is often assumed.

For Seth, it has been a struggle all his life to try to realize that people are not always mad at him.  Because he doesn't 'hear' the irony or sarcasm in someones voice, he usually assumes the worse.  He hears people being upset with him and angry with him, all the time.  In the hallways at school, he was always questioning why someone would call him a name or why teachers were singling him out.

When he was in second grade, he was the child who thought kids were always picking on him and laughing at him.  He sat in the back corner of his classroom and cried when others talked to him.  At recess, he often hung out by the teacher so that he felt safe from childhood messing around.  He switched schools in middle school and finally started coming out of his shell a little bit.  He started to make friends with a couple of great kids who remain friendly today.  When he started high school in a small rural environment, we were very concerned for him.  His graduating class of 40 only had 5 boys and they didn't share any real interests with him.  Seth did begin to make friends in high school though and gained a large group of people who were friendly with him.  Seth also began to advocate for himself which made him a much more successful student and helped with his self confidence.

Becoming involved in sports such as cheerleading and baseball and in clubs like DECA and FFA helped him gain even more confidence.  In college now, Seth continues to struggle to maintain successful relationships with his peers.  As his mom, I continue to try to encourage him to watch body language and assume people are being good, but it is hard.  Seth is wanting to leave home and go out on his own for school.  I continue to pray for him as he moves forward with his life.  His potential is huge.  He is bright and good looking.  He is a real go-getter having started his own business and financed a vehicle already.  I hope he continues to grow in understanding of the way his APD affects his social relationships so he does what I want him to do most; be happy.  

Some of the things I have learned...

Patience is a virtue that a mother of a child with learning issues must learn to not only develop but to hone and practice... DAILY.

Vacation:  Teachers are not teaching because of the vacation or because it is an easy pay check.  I was a classroom teacher first... I absolutely know this for a fact.  Teaching is physically, emotionally and mentally exhausting.. five days a week.  You wake up and go to sleep thinking about the child you can't reach or the one that you did.  You cry because you don't understand how anyone could do ___ to a child and justify it.  You see the kids in the grocery store and at the gym and in church.  Teaching is a way of life, not a job.  You do it because you love it.  

Cooler Heads:  Keeping this in mind, when your child struggles to learn in the way that the one teacher you seem to have every year, who will not work with your child, will help you not tear her head off when you have to point out; for the 12 time, that your child is supposed to have notes provided to him.  It also helps to type out that email... the one you wrote when you were on the 3rd hour of homework and headed for the 5th meltdown and send it to a friend not to the teacher.  Then retype that email the next morning when level heads prevail.  

Claws:  If your child is the one and only you have to struggle with to get through school and your child attends a large school, you are in luck.  You can show those momma bear claws a little more often and get accomplished what you need.  If you have 4 children, 3 of whom need understanding, you have to constantly figure out what the line is between supporting your first child and making sure you can show your face to that same teacher when the 4th child enters that same classroom, 10 years later.

Flexibility:  There are no right answers.  What is right for this child, this year, may not be what works for the same child the next.  It definitely will not be what works for another child.. no matter how much sense it made.  Each teacher understands things at a different level.  Learning to explain exactly what things are like for your child in many many ways will help each teacher better understand what they can do to help. 

Self-Confidence/Self Advocacy:  Quite honestly, the best and most important thing you can do to make sure your child succeeds is to make sure they understand a couple very important things.  First, they are absolutely perfect just the way they are.  Because they are not wired the same as most of the rest of their class makes them unique and amazing and you wouldn't want them any other way.  Just because they can perform well on one certain test does not mean they are not smart, it means they can't perform well on that test.  Second, they have the right to ask questions until they understand.  They can ask all the questions they need to get the page or the assignment or what ever they need to succeed.  If the teacher is not cooperative, then you will step in and make sure they do.   No matter what, you have their back.  

Heart Break

About a week ago, my heart broke. Teddy is our little bright light. He is energetic and outgoing and has the most adorable brown eyes that people have been falling for since he was a tiny baby. He has had a girlfriend since birth and women of all ages who just are totally enamored with him. He runs and plays and jumps on the trampoline and rides his bike and bangs things together... he is all boy. He has always been quick to pick things up and loves to figure out how to take things apart and figure out what makes them work. He builds with legos and blocks and train tracks and rocks and sticks... what ever he can find.

A couple weeks ago, he came home and told me I was going to be mad at him. I smiled and said, what did you do? He told me that when I went to parent teacher conferences his teacher was going to show me a paper he had done that he had gotten a "D" on. I asked him what happened for him to get a "D". He told me something about a classmate who had been making noise and that he hadn't heard it explained to him what he was supposed to do and so he did really bad. My heart broke. Up until this year, he has gotten checks on his grade card because he was making the progress expected for him or a plus if he was doing better than he needed to be. This year is the first year he is receiving grades and my little baby got a "D". He didn't want a "D". He wanted to keep getting good grades because he is trying his hardest. He wants to continue to feel like he is smart because he is; but he got a "D". I smiled and assured my little boy that just because he got a "D" on a paper, his mommy still knows he is smart and, as long as he tries, she will not be mad at him.

Teddy is 8 and has APD. He struggles to hear when there is back ground noise present. Teddy yells most of the time, I don't think he knows what it means to use an inside voice. He is not quite as unorganized as his big brother Ben, but close. You always know the last place he was because he just drops things where they leave his hand. Teddy is prosodic, but it shows differently than it does with Seth. He just dissolves when someone yells at him, he can't take it. The harsh tones are like physical blows to him. He also is the little guy who stands up for the kids in class who get picked on, loves frogs to death and wants to take care of every stray he finds.

Second diagnosis...

Ben, our second son, is a social butterfly and has been since birth. He repeated his first word at 4 months..."BOO". We didn't realize he was struggling until he was in middle school and had gone from one teacher who knew him well and worked with his short comings to 7 teachers who didn't. It was the same time when he went from A's and B's to D's and F's. It is also when we realized that in our household, APD was a hereditary issue passed down from father to sons. It was the year Ben was diagnosed with APD and we began recognizing symptoms in his then 4 year old brother.

Ben struggles with volume control. In trying to hear his own voice in his head like he should, he raises his voice above the level he should. What stands out in presentations for Ben are associative and output /organization. His short term memory is almost non-existent and always has been. Before we knew what was going on with him, we called him 'squirrel' because it was so easy to get him off task. Ben does not organize his personal space at all, at home at school... anywhere. To me, his space looks like his mind. Information goes in, but it is all over the place-unorganized. His key phrase for me is, "wait... what?" I know now that he says this when he is just not processing what is going on and needs it repeated or more time. My goal with Ben is to create a successful adult... school will be something we get through on the way there.

How is he doing now???

A lot has happened since that initial diagnosis. We now have four children; three boys and a girl. That 5 year old boy is 18 and in his first year of college. We have had two more children diagnosed with auditory processing disorder and I have, of course, developed quite a passion for the subject on how to help them. When our oldest was diagnosed, we had no idea how to proceed. We thought that his illnesses were the cause of his hearing problems and had no idea the ways in which an individuals brain is wired, affects the entirety of the person. Seth, our 18 year old, struggled socially all the way through school. The overwhelming presentation of APD for him is called prosodic. It impacts the way in which a person intakes language. While his brain is struggling to sort out all the sounds and make sense of what he is trying to hear, his brain does not process things like sarcasm or humor. He has misunderstood so many social interactions over the years that it has been a constant source of stress for him. He is getting better as he grows into an adult, but it is still hard. He also does not read other people's body language or pick up on social cues very well. Seth is working hard to learn to read body language, but he may always struggle with it.