Executive Functioning and Attention
“We firmly believe that incorporating executive function instruction and practice throughout our educational programming—from elementary through middle school—will improve our students' social-emotional and academic outcomes for years to come.” —Abigail Moore, Head Speech-Language Pathologist
Executive Functioning and Attention
Executive function challenges can be extremely overwhelming for students of all ages, impacting all aspects of learning.
“Executive function” is often thought of as the management system of the brain controlling several skills, including:
- Planning: Setting goals ahead of time and taking steps to meet them
- Attention: Focusing on a task, tuning out distractions, and following multi step instructions
- Organizing: Keeping track of lessons, materials, and assignments
- Regulation and Self-Monitoring: Managing emotions and regulating reactions
- Shifting Sets: Easily adapting to changing situations and transitioning when necessary
- Time Management: Developing time awareness and understanding the passage of time
- Initiation: Getting started on tasks and assignments
At West End Day School, we focus on all of these areas, setting our students up for holistic success.
We take an “it takes a village” approach to building and fostering these skills in academic and social settings, and we do that with the help of our students, teachers, speech-language pathologists, counselors, and occupational therapist.
OUR APPROACH: In The Classroom
Our thoughtful classroom design and practices include accommodations that effortlessly reinforce executive functioning skills at every turn. Students internalize these strategies and implement them independently as they mature at WEDS:
- Supportive Visuals: Throughout the day, students can refer to a visual schedule of subjects, class times, and assignments to stay organized, manage their time, and take responsibility for their learning.
- Scaffolding Materials and Interactions: Our assignments and directions are broken down into manageable pieces (which decrease as students move up through the instructional levels) with step-by-step instructions along the way.
- Frequent Teacher Check-Ins: We check in with students early and often to ensure they are not only fully understanding assignments and directions, but also feeling oriented for learning.
- Thoughtful Seating: Our classroom seating takes into consideration any attentional interferences, proximity to the speaker, and the need for additional support.
- Leading by Example: Our teachers help students hone their executive functioning skills by actively using executive function tools themselves. You might see a teacher drawing on a clock to help with time management, for example, or you may hear them talking through strategies for organizing content or modeling self-talk to help regulate emotions.
- Taking Breaks: It can be difficult for students to sustain attention, tune out distractions, stay organized, and inhibit impulses throughout their long days. At West End Day School, we encourage time to “reset” and take breaks, so our students can be their most successful selves.
- Positive Reinforcement for Emotional Regulation: Managing emotions and impulses throughout the school day can be difficult for students. We employ mindful, class-wide incentives and strategies that never shame students, but aim to help them feel more in control and more able to manage the things they feel.
BUILDING EXECUTIVE FUNCTION TOGETHER: Research and Study Skills Groups
In addition to the built-in, everyday executive functioning supports outlined above, our students join Study Skills Groups, taught directly by our speech-language pathologists, for even more targeted guidance.
Study Skills Group lessons cover:
- Strategies for overall organization, paraphrasing, note taking, highlighting, time management, rubric usage, assessment preparation, and other techniques that provide a foundation for greater academic independence
- Activities that encourage reflective thinking on learning styles and what motivates them to learn. Older students learn strategies for increased situational awareness, improved visual memory, and planning for longer-term assignments
- Instruction on using digital and print resources to gather and synthesize information