Overall, it was great to learn about executive functions and how they play a role in the development of people and their skills. The webcasts were able to give me a lot of added information on EFs and why they are important.  These skills play a very important role in planning, focusing, remembering things, doing instructions, and even multitasking. One way of looking at EFs is like a navigation system for the problems and challenges we will face in life. As we get older the strength and abilities of these skills grow allowing us to be more independent and organized all together. When teaching I will focus more on the skills my students do or do not have to ensure that they can gain the skills they need.

When assessing executive functions, you will first need to find the missing skill or skills of your students. When assuming that the student is just missing skills and not doing it by choice allows us to find out what they are capable of. When trying to assess students we can lean on people like family members, other teachers, counselors, and therapists to gain information about their skills, environments, and struggles to help them. When the team is assessed, there is an indirect and direct approach supported by both informal and formal methods. If assessing indirectly you work more with that team of people who know the student well. When you individually administer tests or work with the student you are following the direct approach. Some formal approaches are standardized tests and questionnaires that are all administered by a psychologist. Informal assessment deals more with things like observations, work samples, and informal interviews. When you gain this data, you identify strategies to support challenges, and build needs and goals based off this.

While executive function skills are not something we are born with, we can still develop and gain the skills later in life. As we learn and improve EF skills our brains and skills begin to develop more. If a child is around the age of 1, they will need a lot more supervision and external regulation when compared to a 5-year-old. When a kid is 10, they should have some self-regulation while only needed occasional reminders for complex or self-regulation tasks. At the age of 20 we should all have self-regulation with a variety of tasks, emotional demands, and challenges. Now some of these executive function skills seem like easy skills to gain but some people still struggle with them. Typically, people with learning disabilities, developmental delays, and emotional disorders could all struggle with executive function. Some other problems that impact EF is a lack of sleep, stress, use of drugs, and a lack of nutrition. It is especially important for us to understand who is impacted by EFs, how they develop and how we can help develop them.

Executive functions are internal operations of the brain that allow us to plan, focus, remember, and multitask. EF makes it so we can organize behavior and prioritize things, like long-term goals. Many people like to think of EF as the GPS of the brain, this is because EFs direct our brain by telling us what to do and for how long. EFs just like a GPS tell us where to go when approaching a task, and when things don’t go the ways, we want EF will redirect us to succeed. There are considered to be over 30 executive functions that help us do a number of things but there are 8 critical functions that everyone should have. These 8 functions are emotional control, inhibitory control, goal setting, organization, initiation, working memory, mental flexibility, and self-monitoring. These 8 skills directly connect to four areas of manifestations. One of these manifestations is self-management and this deals with EFs like impulse control, sensory regulation, and self-monitoring. The next manifestation is time management, and this deals with goal setting, planning, and shifting. Another manifestation is materials management, and the last one information management. These EFs and manifestations are supports and strategies we can use throughout every day.

When it comes to Executive function skills they are used by people every day. These skills play a very important role in planning, focusing, remembering things, doing instructions, and even multitasking. When people are planning activities there are a number of skills and strategies they can do to make planning, strategizing, and executing activities easy. For some people they make lists, chunk tasks into categories, and share ideas to get others involved. One important step with these organization strategies is to follow through to make sure tasks are being done correctly and on time. Having the ability to delegate and understand when you want to get things done when trying to execute will help you a lot. Some people struggle with EF skills like organization and planning, but they can get better with experience and learning. When people can