Understanding and Assessing Executive Skills

Executive skills—often referred to as “the hidden curriculum”—are critical cognitive abilities that underpin academic success. These include skills like task initiation, sustained attention, working memory, planning, organization, and goal-directed persistence. While these skills are essential for students to thrive in school, they are rarely explicitly addressed in standard curriculum frameworks.

Research shows that executive skills continue to develop well into early adulthood, and their growth can be influenced by factors such as experience, environment, and direct instruction. It is essential for educators to recognize the role these skills play in learning and to adopt strategies that promote their development in students.

Morning Session: Foundations of Executive Skills

• Overview of Executive Skills: Introduction to the cognitive functions necessary for task management, such as working memory, emotional regulation, task initiation, and impulse control.
• Developmental Progression: Learn how executive skills evolve from infancy through adolescence and the factors that impact this progression, including neurological development and environmental influences.
• Executive Skills and Brain Function: Understand the neuropsychological basis for executive skills and how disruptions in these processes can lead to executive dysfunction.
• Self-Assessment: Participants will complete a personal executive skills self-assessment to identify their strengths and areas for growth.

Key Activities:

• Group discussions on the developmental trajectory of executive skills.
• Case studies to explore how deficits in executive function manifest differently.

Afternoon Session: Assessment and Environmental Modifications

• Assessing Executive Skills: Learn how to identify executive skill deficits through formal assessments, behavior rating scales, and teacher/parent/student interviews.
• Modifying the Environment: Discover strategies for adapting the home and classroom environment to support students with executive dysfunction. This includes environmental changes, task modifications, and adjusting adult interactions to promote success.

Key Activities:

• Brainstorming session to design classroom and home-based environmental modifications that support children, adolescents and young adults with weak executive skills.