Executive Skills
We are able to manage our lives using high-level thinking abilities called executive skills. In the same way that the executive runs a company, our brain’s executive skills direct and manage our lives.
Students with strong executive skills manage their study sessions so they are more productive. They understand which subjects to give the greatest attention to because they “know what they know.”
These students are organized and efficient. They regulate their emotions so that they bring test anxiety under control.
Students with ADD or ADHD have difficulty regulating their lives in one or more key areas. ADD and ADHD can make it difficult for students to screen out distractions, prioritize their activities, and commit to tasks that are “boring” to them. They need educational therapy to help them develop stronger management skills.
Autism is another disorder that affects students’ executive skills. Students with autism spectrum disorder need help to learn how to study effectively and how to determine if they have learned the material well. They can have trouble with reading comprehension and therefore don’t realize that they have not mastered the reading assignment.
Our executive skills programs help students develop the willingness and ability to manage their academic lives. We help students become productive, efficient and organized. We show students how to find time for all the academic tasks they are expected to do and still find time to enjoy their interests and family and friends. We help students who have difficulty sustaining attention learn ways to increase their “time on task.”
We help students “feel like studying” when they have given up because of repeated failure. We help them develop the emotional copying strategies to persist through difficult subjects and demanding schedules. We help them defeat the learned helplessness that robs them of confidence and the power to change.