Parents, teachers and doctors are discovering the importance of executive function
Is your kid smarter than his grades indicate?
For years parents, teachers and even kids have been puzzled by grades that don’t seem to match up to intelligence.
Today, prompted by recent scientific insights into the human brain, many parents and teachers are discovering that some children—even very intelligent children—are underachieving in school because they have problems with executive function.
Executive what?
Executive function is an umbrella term that encompasses a range of essential brain functions that together allow us to prioritize activities, sustain attention and mentally manipulate information.
“Executive functions are like the conductor of the brain’s orchestra,” says Dr. Bill Benninger, a child and adolescent psychologist who has been treating attention issues for more than 25 years. “Individual musicians in an orchestra can be very skilled, if they don’t have somebody helping them to work together, then it’s very difficult for them to sound good together.”
Executive function problems commonly occur in a range of children including those who suffer from ADHD, autism or Aspergers. They also occur in many children who do not have a medical diagnosis but nevertheless struggle with one of the crucial cognitive functions that comprise executive function, such as working memory—the ability to hold information in mind for brief periods of time.
Often, executive function problems manifest themselves in students gradually as academics become more demanding. “When kids move into middle school, they have multiple teachers, they are expected to do things that are more on their own rather than somebody holding their hand,” said Benninger. “Kids with executive function problems have the information they need but they have difficulty organizing it. They have difficulty remembering their homework assignments and leave important materials at school.”
But executive function isn’t just a kid thing, says Benninger. “As the demands that we have placed on us increase, the problem can actually become worse, because we are expected to do more. It’s most frequent that executive function problems don’t diminish as a person ages. About 85 percent of people with executive function problems continue to have difficulties into adulthood and those difficulties often result in failure, whether it has to do with college or work.”
For more on about executive function and other attention issues, visit our video channel and watch interviews with Dr. Benninger and other experts
