Executive Function Frustration!

 

Do you have a child that has difficulty following directions? Tying shoes is a frustrating nightmare? Multiple steps to any project or life skills leads to a frustrating outcome. You might be dealing with an Executive Function Disorder.

Every Christmas we have a tradition of cooking a cured ham. Not sure how it got started but we love it. It is time consuming and a multi step process that takes days. My lovely kitchen assistant this year was my son. He was ready to help and chip in immediately. However my son has processing issues that make multi step directions difficult for him.

We scrubbed down the ham and prepped it for it marinade. The ham was supposed to be in water for a couple days and then go into a cooking marinade. My son read through the recipe and lumped it all together and got out everything at once. Then when I stepped in to help him straighten things out we ended up with this…

I told him that he needed to put the Dr Pepper in with the ham. I am so glad we were all able to laugh about it and in the end fix the recipe. Dinner came out excellent.

He took a recipe with lots of steps and got confused. The jumble was so overwhelming that even with help you see how the simple ‘put the Dr Pepper in with the ham’ got translated in very black and white.

Executive Function Disorder is generally speaking a processing problem in Regulation or Organization of thought processing. This can be in how the brain stores information, retrieves information, or tries to produce the appropriate response to information. Executive function issues can also include how your child sees and adjusts to problems along the way.

What is Executive Function? by WebMD.com

While kids can often think they are slow or not as smart because of an executive function problem their intellect is not the issue. There are many gifted to highly gifted people that struggle with executive function issues. We need to reinforce to our children that now we know there is a problem with how the brain is storing and working with information we can help! As a team we are going to work on ways to create a healthy less frustrating path to get multi step, higher order learning done and done well!

Is It Executive Function Disorder (EFD) or ADHD? By Larry Silver MD

Signs of Executive Function in your Child-

Inability to start a project or multistep job (like tying shoes, taking a shower, writing a report)

Lump directions together or misplace them in order

Unable to regulate their response to changing needs (such as unable to understand why you have to go to another restaurant even though the first restaurant was closed)

Time mismanagement

Horrible note takers, unable to discern what is the important information and what is not.

Can complete tasks when things are clear and precise and simplified.

Struggles with understanding if there is a lot of distraction around.

Executive Function issues can be seen with other problems such as– ADHD, Frontal brain damage, FAS, Genetics and heredity, neurological disorders, medications like Topamax, dyslexia, autism, mood disorder

Now that list seems like a list for a child with ADHD or many other bits and pieces of learning disorders. There is a good deal of medical back and forth as to whether or not Executive Function Disorder is a ‘real’ disorder or just another way of restating ADHD, etc.

I really don’t care. I know that my child suffers from an inability to comprehend and complete multi-step direction. He needs help and I am going to give it to him. I am guessing that is exactly what you are going to do too!

Now that we have outlined the problem. I want to take this week and work on ways we can help our child/teen learn skills to make their life better.

Are you dealing with executive function issues in your home? Have you blogged about a problem or solution? Love to see it! Leave it in the comments and lets pool our ideas to help our children excel!