Page 18 - Educators Guide Book

Executive Functioning

How to Help a Student with Executive Functioning Difficulties:

• Make sure sessions are well organized.

• Establish joint attention when providing directives.

• Show the student what “Done” means (i.e. a completed page of math examples), and help
the student determine how to get to the “Done” (Sara Ward).

• Use visuals for organizational and sequential purpose

• Teach the child about the passage of time.

• Schedule time to help the child clean and organize his/her knapsack and personal
supplies.

• Teach task approach techniques.

• Help your student problem solve and determine good solutions to problems. Use think
alouds as a tool to accomplish this.
• Provide a checklist for activities that must be completed during the session and
throughout the school day as a point of reference for your student.

• Use calendars/planners to organize work and homework.

• Break assignments into manageable pieces.

• Use color coding for organizational purposes.

• Use graphic organizers to help organize academic work.

• Allow only necessary material on a student’s desk.

• Reinforce the child for organized behavior.

• Establish simple rules that will help organize the child.

• Don’t allow students to use ADD as an excuse.

18 Educator's Guide / Executive Functioning