Executive Dysfunction at Home and at School: Smart but Scattered – Margaret Dawson

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Children who have deficient executive skills often have trouble getting started on tasks, get distracted easily, lose papers or assignments and forget to hand in homework. They make careless mistakes, put off work until the last minute and have no sense of time urgency. Workspaces are disorganized and teachers often refer to their backpacks or lockers as “black holes.” Often considered chronic underachievers, these children are at risk for academic failure as well as emotional and behavioral difficulties.

Dr. Dawson, co-author of the best-selling books Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, 3rd Ed. (2018), Smart but Scattered (Guilford, 2009) and Smart but Scattered Teens (2013, Guilford) uses case examples along with interactive discussion to demonstrate how the executive skills manifest in daily home and school activities. Learn how to assess these skills and take home evidence-based strategies to help children and adolescents overcome executive skills weaknesses.

Finish this recording with a set of tools that includes strategies for task/environmental modifications, skill development through cognitive/behavioral techniques and creation of incentive systems. You will be able to give teachers and parents a means for developing and improving the following:

• Organization
• Time management
• Impulse control
• Goal-directed persistence
• Executive skills critical for independent functioning

1. Determine the neurological processes involved with executive skill development in both neurotypical children and those with executive dysfunction, such as ADHD.
2. Differentiate between a variety of formal and informal executive function assessments.
3. Develop environmental modifications to support weak executive skills at home and school.
4. Design student-centered interventions that target problem scenarios associated with executive skills deficits.
5. Utilize coaching methods that support executive skills development to improve school performance.
6. Construct effective protocols for teaching specific executive skills, including working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control.

Executive Skills

• Underlying theory
• Executive skills in the context of brain function and child development
• Limitations of the research and potential risks

Assessment of Executive Skills

• Parent/teacher/student interviews
• Behavior rating scales
• Observations
• Informal assessment
• Formal assessment

Intervention Strategies

• Environmental modifications to reduce the impact of weak executive skills
• Teaching strategies to help children develop/improve executive functioning
• Using incentives to help practice or use skills that are difficult

Keys to Effective Intervention Design

• Match the child’s developmental level
• Use the child’s innate drive for mastery and control
• Begin with environmental modifications
• Effortful tasks and ways to make them less difficult
• Use incentives to augment instruction
• Provide the minimum support necessary
• Apply supports and interventions until the child achieves mastery or success
• Gradually fade supports, supervision, and incentives

Coaching: An Effective Strategy for Building Executive Skills

• Description of 2-stage process
• Coaching with younger children
• Clinical case examples
• Research studies supporting the efficacy of coaching