Executive Functioning Disorder — Kioko Center
Executive Function (EF) skills serve to enhance our brain’s “control and command” center. Our EF includes skills that allow us to plan, organize, problem-solve, and set and achieve goals throughout daily life. In short, EF comprises our ability to learn how to learn! These crucial skills start developing in early childhood and eventually influence our kids’ spoken and written language communication.
As you might guess, EF skills are important to a child’s academic success, but the skills also play a vital role in social interactions. Sharp EF skills help us maintain and update information as our conversations build in length and complexity. They enable us to stay on topic, formulate ideas, and respond during our conversations with various people.
What, then, might determine an Executive Function Disorder? Children with EF Disorder have a pattern of difficulties in performing daily tasks. Most often, these problems relate to planning, organizing, and completing their objectives within a certain timeframe. Children with EFDisorder misplaced school materials and personal items.
But it’s not for lack of trying! And we all might struggle to some degree with analyzing, organizing, or meeting deadlines. But seemingly simple acts of organizing their bedroom or backpack may be a frustrating challenge that a child with an EF Disorder cannot complete. And EF skill deficits may begin to impact their academic and social successes.
Executive Function Disorder Is often regarded as if it were a single disorder. However, there are many different aspects to the problem, and a child may exhibit both strengths and weaknesses in EF. Executive dysfunction can be a singular diagnosis, or it might be coupled with ADHD and other learning disorders. Some key indicators that children might be struggling with an EF Disorder include:
- unable to meet reasonable and routine deadlines
- distraction or fatigue while trying to pay attention
- difficulty in short- and long-term daily planning
- trouble getting started on a chosen task, or shifting to a new one
- inability to organize personal items at school and home.
