What is Executive Function?

Executive function is a relatively new term, often used by researchers, mental health providers and other experts to describe the cognitive abilities needed to accomplish daily tasks as well as learning. Sheldon Horowitz, Ed.D., Director of Professional Services at the national Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), describes it this way, "Executive functioning involves activating, orchestrating, monitoring, evaluating, and adapting different strategies to accomplish different tasks...It requires the ability to analyze situations, plan and take action, focus and maintain attention, and adjust actions as needed to get the job done."

Specifically, executive function provides the ability to self-regulate and monitor our behaviors through: 

• Planning and organization
• Keeping track of time
• Being able to accomplish more than one thing at a time
• Recalling past knowledge and using it in a current situation
• Evaluating progress and changing course when needed
• Completing tasks or work on schedule
• Understanding and engaging in group dynamics, including waiting turns during conversations
• Seeking out additional resources or information or asking for help when needed
• Ability to control emotions 

Problems with executive function often become more apparent as children enter elementary school and must learn to complete assignments work in groups with other children and meet demands of schoolwork, homework and additional responsibilities at home. Deficits in executive functioning can cause problems at any age, however.

Executive Functioning and ADHD

Parents of children with ADHD will tell you that the problems their children experience often do not fit neatly into the categories described diagnostic criteria for ADHD. Difficulties in social situations, in planning long-term assignments and completing work on a daily basis may go beyond the descriptions but are often a source of daily frustration.

Chris Dendy M.S., in an article titled, "Executive Function...What is This Anyway", explains that executive function deficits in children with ADHD can create problems in several areas, including: 

• Getting started and finishing work
• Remembering homework
• Memorizing facts
• Writing essays or reports
• Working math problems
• Being on time
• Controlling emotions
• Completing long-term assignments
• Planning for the future 

According to Ms. Dendy, deficits in executive function help to explain why so many children with ADHD, although intelligent, have difficulty in school and may barely pass some classes, even though their IQ would indicate their ability to easily grasp the subject matter.

Ms. Dendy further identifies several areas in school children with ADHD often have problems:

Impaired Working Memory and Slow Processing Speed. These skills are important areas of executive function and are often seen as deficits in children with ADHD. These skills, however, are extremely important in the academic setting of school as well as later in life in the work environment. Specifically, writing essays and completing math problems can be negatively impacted when a child has difficulties in these areas.