SLP 336: Executive Functioning Challenges Looks like Defiance: Why and How to Building Executive Functioning in Neurodiverse Students

Welcome everybody, this podcast, we're going to dive in deep. It's nearly like a mini training. So I highly recommend if you're on the treadmill or driving, make sure you download from my blog the PDF that goes with this podcast because it is more like a mini training and this is the one thing I wished I'd known years ago when I started autism spectrum. In fact, I probably didn't learn about this topic until about 10 years into my journey, which is embarrassing. I was experiencing it every day, but I never knew what it was called and it's called executive functioning. So in this podcast, we're going to talk about what is it, what to do, most children with autism spectrum and ADHD, executive functioning is something we really need to understand. But the exciting thing about executive functioning, it's actually a muscle really in your brain and the more you use it, the better you get than really like literacy, like teaching children to read, we need to help them practice their emotional regulation, which is part of executive functioning. But this is true of all areas of executive functioning. The way I like to look at executive functioning years ago, I saw this great clip on YouTube that explained executive functioning like the air traffic controller in your head. So if you can imagine while you're listening to this, you're blocking out other noises, you might be multitasking and driving or on the treadmill or I tend to listen to podcasts when I'm walking, but there's a lot going on around me, but I'm listening. For many children on the spectrum and ADHD, if there's too much stimulus, they can't focus on one thing and you've all seen this where the teacher's talking and they're looking out the window at a bird. I remember one of my boys one year in that plan didn't get any net plan done because his favorite thing in the world was birds and there was an owl in the tree outside the school hall where he was doing that plan. So as if he could focus on that plan, that owl became just hyper focused and you've seen this where they focus on the wrong things often. Whereas the rest of us can block this out. So imagine the air traffic controller, you have noise, you have sound, you have emotions, you have information, all of this coming in and you have to control that. And for many children with autism spectrum, they can't actually regulate that. As always, every child with autism spectrum and ADHD's individual and how executive functioning looks is individual to them. But also because it is a muscle, it also depends how much practice they've had at these things. So I highly recommend that you download the PDF that goes with this week's podcast, but I've also included a blank template. So you can write in what executive functioning looks like for the individual child and the strategies that have been used to improve their executive functioning. I think this is awesome, particularly with transition to next year coming up to remind people that this is part of ADHD and autism spectrum. The child isn't making a choice to be distracted by that owl. It's actually up to us to monitor and check in and be aware. Now teachers, I know you're going, I've got 30 kids, Sue, how can I check on that? Or parents are going, how can I help at school? A lot of these strategies are about building systems so that you aren't needing to be there all the time. So executive function, just so those of you who've never heard of it, you, as I say, you're probably like me, where for my first 10 years I saw these things, but I didn't know that this came under this umbrella of executive functioning. So it includes emotional control, impulse control, planning and prioritising, organising, task initiation, flexibility and working memory. Now if any of those words are new to you, make sure you have a look at my blog because there's more explanation in there. I just try and make this easy listening and it is complex executive functioning. As I say, emotional control are my children who really struggle with emotions and also accepting negative feedback often because often they don't understand what they could have done differently and I'd encourage you to listen to my podcast on perfectionism. They also often over-react to little injustices, the smallest injustice they'll over-react, don't have troubles with that emotions and they often struggle to finish a task when something upsets them. So if they make a mistake, they find it hard to go back to task. But emotional control, as I say, affects all areas of their emotions, of their playing a game and they lose or they can see they're going to lose, they might have trouble with that. So I'd love you to observe over the next week all of these areas and start to just make notes of where this child might need to build up that muscle of emotional regulation or planning or prioritising or inhibition. Like all these areas and really think how you can support them and what are the things you can put in place. So for many of my children with emotional control, I do highly recommend you do my emotional regulation course. It's like a three-hour course, so I can't dive in deep to that today. But if you've done mine or Tony's course, it really builds on understanding how to help children regulate their emotions and what you can do to put in place to help them understand their emotions but also other people's emotions. Emotional literacy to me is with reading, you have reading, comprehension, you have reading is listening, there's a lot more to reading than just decoding and it's the same with emotions. Children need to learn all those facets. So if you haven't done the course, I highly recommend you look at it, huge folder you can print out, refer back to forever and the schools who have done it are using it with so many kids. Can I tell you, not just children with autism and ADHD, lots of neuroverse, diverse kids with trauma and so forth. So I highly recommend you have a look at that. But anyway, let's dive in deep. So impulse control, what does that look like? Impulse control looks like calling out, rushing through activities without checking, inconsistency, without following the rules. Now for many of my ADHD kids, this is where medication can really help them with impulse control. Now no one wants to medicate children, none of us want to give our children medication, but I would find for children with ADHD, if you don't want to medicate your child and they have trouble with impulse control, you're going to have to work really hard on this. Or maybe try medication for a while, see if it helps with their impulse control and then build up their impulse control. I am very eclectic in my way with all children and medication might be just part of your toolbox, but I also think that you should be still working on impulse control for that child. If you have children who have difficulty with impulse control, I find having a visual system where I indicate to them, if they're going to call out, I might put my hand in the weight system and letting them know to wait. So even though they're calling out, I'm not saying don't call out, I'm letting them know I've seen them and they need to wait. Or those of you who have done workshops with me, you will know I use like the opposite of a talking stick, which is like a sensory tool on a key chain with a weight attached and in fact I'm just going to write down now to put a photo of the weight system in your blog and podcast otherwise I'm going to forget because I don't like re-listing to myself. I hate my own voice, I don't know about you if you ever listened to yourself on your answering machine, you're like really? Is that how I sounds? Yeah, I wait, I'll write that down so I don't forget. So there you are, there's an executive functioning skill. Writing it down so I don't forget and teaching children to write things down is so important, but in one spot, otherwise they end up with notes everywhere. And I know we all end up with notes everywhere, but you can cope with all those notes. Remember it's the pilot and the air traffic control. So if you've got too many notes everywhere, that's too many planes coming into land. So teaching them to write everything in one spot is really important. Planning and prioritising. So for children who have difficulty with planning and prioritising what that looks like is difficulty deciding the steps they need to reach the goal. So children in secondary will get this big task and they'll focus on one thing or they won't know where to start or they'll just get one resource and go all the way down the path on that resource and it's the wrong resource. And that's where my angels of teacher assistants who are listening but your jobs often to give them three strong and good resources or to check in with them weekly how they're going. And in primary say they have to do a poster on Antarctica, I would get them to do habitat one week then animals the next week rather than the whole task because they will get have trouble prioritising that and maybe do a whole thing on habitat yet there's four or five areas they're expected to do. So often it's up to us to help them prioritise but remember we're going to teach them to fish. So teaching them to highlight, look at it, breaking it down week one week two, week three. So when they get to secondary that muscle's been practised and they can see the end result. They can see by breaking it down they ended up at this end point. Really important breaking things down into smaller chunks or in early childhood rather than doing a whole puzzle just getting them to do the last three pieces because a lot of my kids would just see the whole puzzle not nowhere to start or getting them started. So you do the first piece, five pieces they do the last five. So how can you break a task down for them to be successful? Because so many of kids who have difficulty with executive functioning get so frustrated they don't finish things and parents and carers listening. No this child likes two finishings they have to listen, no not listen watch YouTube clip to the end. They don't like pausing videos. They don't like pausing things to the end of the credits. And that's part of impulse control executive functioning. This scared they will forget to come back to it. There's a whole lot going on there. The next one is organization, which obviously builds into planning and prioritising. But organizations, more things like losing things, constantly forgetting to bring home notes or bring them back, losing their clothes, losing their pens and pencils. And that's why I'd recommend they don't have a big smiggles pencil case because they've got too much. They're going to lose it. If they only have to keep track of a red pen, blue pen, black pen pencil, what do they really need in that pencil case? How many coloured pencils do they really need? I don't know about you, but as a junior primary school teacher, I love textors. But I tend to wear out the red, blue and green. I tend not to use the other colours. What are the colours this kid really uses? Let's just give them those colours rather than 12 choices. Because actually trying to choose 12 things takes planning and prioritising, but also that's more for them to organise. And I prefer they just had small choices. So what is your educational goal? They colour in. Does it matter they only use three textors? Because you probably don't like me. You only have your preference in textors too. I lived with a girl who was a teacher as well when I was younger and she loved purple. Everything was purple. Purple pens, purple textors, purple clothes, everything was purple. So it's no point giving her other colours. She doesn't want those. And I admire that. I'm a bit of a, in fact, I cleaned out my wardrobe on the weekend and I realised my mum's always said, I'm a parrot. I do collect colours. But when it comes to my textors, only three colours. So I'm not saying I would have other colours elsewhere in their life. Just in this, it might be worth thinking about. Sorry, that was probably a little bit off track. But anyway, I was having a little bit of impulse control getting distracted. And we all use this every day. Remember, you use this stuff every day. Now, task initiation. This is the kid who really struggles to get going. Who, once you get going, they can get into the task. And this is particularly true for ADHD kids. And why those of you who've done my workshops know I talk about the five minute warning that this kid often does their best work in the last five minutes. So they sit on the runway if we're using the plane analogy and they fluff around and they procrastinate. And then they take off and they get heaps done. But if you don't give them a five minute warning to finish, they're just going to sit on the runway the whole time. They have trouble. That's like when you go five minutes to go, it initiates them to get going. Now, when I went to school, I truly believe the task initiation was rule up your page right the date. So you need to think what's the task initiation for this kid, even if he's writing the date every day on top of their page, even if it is writing what subject or have a thing, how can you help them get going? Is it open the book? Get out your pen. Just getting going. For example, with fitness, they say just getting the shoes on half the battle. Like what is the thing they need to do to actually take action? So often these kids come across as lazy or procrastinating, but they're really just overwhelmed and don't know what to do and putting things off. And that's why for these kids, routines are so important. So I've got friends who are really good at fitness, including my husband Andrew. But four o'clock every day, he has a set time. He exercises no matter what. Like his alarm goes off. He just does it at that time. So he has a routine, whereas I tend to have to have to fit it in around every day for me. Looks different one day, podcasting one day in the school one day in a different place. So I can't have that set routine. And so I get really slack. And so I have to think about how am I going to make it a routine? Because I know if I'm going to the gym, I do it. So what is the thing that will initiate it for that child? Or if I'm going for a walk with a girlfriend, I always turn up. So have a think, how can you get them to initiate that task? What is going to do that? And honestly, for some of my kids, it's a good reward. Like half an hour homework, half an hour on YouTube. At school, 25 minutes work, five minute walk. So for the reward, get some going. Have a think what is going to get them going? And for kids who procrastinate, I would be using my digital schedule. And I'm just making a note. I'll make sure I put the digital schedules in the podcast this week. So you know what I'm talking about? But the advantage of the digital schedule, you can pause them. So say you're saying 25 minutes work, five minute reward or 25 minutes work, 25 minutes on YouTube. What you can actually do on the digital schedule is pause. So just say to them, remember 25 minutes work and then 25 minutes on your YouTube or five minute reward. So there's an orange button that you can pause and say, when you're working, I'll push start again and then hit the start. So what that makes, 88 kids is more accountable for that 25 minutes solid work, rather than sitting there for 25 minutes watching a time, time ago down. So remember, different kids need different timers and different strategies. And I'll come to timers in a minute. I hope you're enjoying this mini training. If you want to learn more about executive functioning, I highly recommend the two hour executive functioning course with Dean Beatle. We've had hundreds of people do the course who have absolutely loved it. And if you have a look on the page that is in the podcast or the link to the Dean Beatle executive functioning course, what you are going to see is how many people are saying this course has practical information, which is incredibly useful and easy to understand it, implement. Thank you for what you do. It has helped our family. So parents have loved it. A teacher assistant Zoe, I have just finished your executive functioning course. Sue Lucky and I wanted to thank you. I'm a teacher, a, I thought the course would be wonderful supporting my students, which it was. But ultimately, what I got from the course was so much more. You've helped me recognize executive functioning challenges within myself and my children, given me more understanding about my teens doing nothing, but being in power saving mode. This is going to be a game changer for our relationships. Thank you so much. So make sure you check out the executive functioning course. And the reason I say that it's unseeable when this episode drops, it is only going to be $79 and it's normally $149. I'm probably only going to offer this once this year. So make sure you make the most of this opportunity and enroll now because I know what a difference this course will make to you and the children and students, you know whether you're a teacher, teacher, assistant, early childhood educator, this course is for everybody. And two hours, it is going to save you hours of stress. I promise flexibility. Look, I guess this is one of the ones that many of my kids get better at, but not always greater. This is where they're so literal and black and white thinkers and particularly for children with autism, it is part of their autism. I guess I get better at remembering that they're literal and accepting that sometimes it's my communication. So one of my little girls in that plan that said, can you see the pattern? And she just answered, yes, whereas what you're meant to do is write down the pattern. So can you see the literalness there? And I know people always give like the shoes and socks example, but for me it's not so much that it's where they'll be given a task and they'll just answer yes or no. Or do you think Hitler did blah blah? No? And you meant to discuss it because it doesn't say explain, discuss. It's up to us to make sure they understand our words and what we're asking them to do. The flexibility, I think I use that more teaching them flexibility around emotions and understanding emotions and sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. But trying to change their black and white if they're very literal can be very tricky. There is a great book on my website called What Do You Say? And I'm writing that down to if you can hear me scratching. What did you say? What did you mean? And that is a great one to help kids who are very literal and I've found that invaluable over the years. And in fact a friend who has a son who's very literal used it as a coffee table book and that's what put me on to it originally. So that's a brand book. Working memory. Now this is like I can't could you hear me? It's so hard. Some of my kids have amazing memory but they're working memory which is they're really did a whole memory of a complex task and multi steps. They struggle with that. So how can they know everything about space? All these facts but struggle to remember, put that in your bag, take it home, bring it back tomorrow. Working memory can just be so frustrating. How can they know so much? But struggle to retain three or four steps? How can a parent send them up to their bedroom to get something and they can't come down? That's why routines are much better around working memory. The more routines the better. But remember a lot of the working memory stuffs because they're distracted in a busy classroom. So you're giving them three things they need to do. But they're distracted by something else. So it's that struggling with multi steps and remembering directions and or taking notes and not really understanding what they've written down. It's really complex. So working memory is struggle. It's so different to memory. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. So there's a difference between working memory and memory. This kid might have a good memory but how is their working memory? How do they go holding complex instructions? and steps. How many steps can they hold? So that's why when you feel in the PDF or the information in the PDF for this child, I would actually say, like, how many steps can they remember? Do you find how do you have to make sure they're not distracted? Or are they best with something in their hands? Some of my children, I would never ask them to look at me when I'm giving instructions yet. So often that's something we ask for neurotypical kids because some of my kids, if they're looking at me, they can't actually remember. So that would be the information I highly recommend you think about, including. So in the PDF that has strategies to improve working memory, I've covered some of these already and I know a lot of you are using them and there's a beautiful little infographic that goes with this week's podcast and blog that you'll find really helpful that sort of shows you all the things you can do. So that includes visuals, making sure you pre-worn them about change, lots of modeling like showing them that Antarctic assessment task, how that's going to look at the end, showing them how an essay looks on Hitler when you say did Hitler did blah blah. Lots of modeling, particularly around emotions and organisation, the more routines the better, lots of systems. So that note that needs to go home goes in a plastic sleeve in their bag so that they know where things are and it doesn't get lost. Minimising distractions like I say with the pencil case but also on their table and their areas, making sure there aren't things to distract them. And time management. Now I've mentioned digital schedules, I'm a huge fan of time timers and different kids need different things for this. And personally, I think social scripts are fantastic for emotional control, for planning, writing social scripts that explain what's going to happen when, that the reason that we, some of my children have to write, we only have five things in our pencil case so we don't lose them. When we lose things, we get upset. That is why we only have five things in our pencil case. So helping them explain that but the advantage of social scripts is they can refer back to them. So all of these things, I hope you agree, are really helpful. So in this weeks podcast, as I said, there's an infographic and what we did, we put a wee as in me. I put it on Facebook and ask people, look, which of these things are you using? What else are you using for executive functioning? So I had on there things like a daily schedule, right homework in the same spot, teach and practice routines, give many deadlines, explicitly state what's important information to be shared, give organisation time at the end of each class. So making sure at the end of each class there is time to pack away, use timers to give five minute warnings, reduce distractions around the classroom or at home, around where they do their homework, give brain breaks. That's so important with emotional regulation and have a supply of classroom offerings so that they can have backup. Now I love my Facebook community. You guys have come back with so many other ideas and comments. So if you're not part of my Facebook, please join. It is the most beautiful, positive, caring, amazing community I get on there every day and it always warms my heart to see all of you on there. So please make sure you're part of it because I always ask like any questions from an upcoming guest. I'm always on there asking, how can I help? So please remember Facebook's a great way for us to connect. Mandy said teaching kids to break the information down to do and a done checklist. Absolutely. Love it, Mandy. Couldn't agree more. Lindsay said a visual instruction for any verbal instruction. So any visual verbal instruction, they have a copy of visual instructions to take home with them. Brilliant. Love it. Kim said hydration breaks. Absolutely and lots of you have heard me talk about the importance of having the water on their desk and making sure they're hydrated because remember part of executive functioning is having trouble regulating when you need the toilet food and drink. That all comes under that. And that's why I believe in toilet timing and food timing, not waiting to the child's hungry. Riley or hope I'm saying your name correctly. Visual checklist for every subject. I love it and making sure there's things like reminders, things like to put capital letters, punctuation, finger spacing, all these things. And it doesn't matter if they're near five. A lot of my kids still need that. But once it's a routine, they won't need it. Give an example of what the finished hassle looks like, said Penny, which is exactly what I've said a few times. Thank you, Penny. Sandra, remind them when change is coming up because remember when there's change, there's a lot of executive functioning required. You need to be able to finish what you're doing. You need to be able to get organized. You need to control your emotions if you didn't get to finish something so much in that. Alison said, "Groups similar tasks together so they don't have to stop and start. Love that." So less transitions. So groups and I used to always have a start and finish box in my class. So my kids with ADHD and ASD would take from the start, but it might go maths, English, whatever. But they weren't actually having to get up and move around to other groups. And often I bought other children to them rather than them having to move. Depend on the kids. Some kids actually need that movement. Kim said, "Color coding for subjects for home and school. Love it. Assign seating." That's exactly what I was just talking about. I love that. And making sure they understand the marking criteria and how that assessment works. So showing them what I would do is show them the criteria and what it looks like as a finished product and how that connects and sometimes color coding to show them. He was the criteria. Here's where that was answered. Susan, I found a clock divided into colored parts that taught my autistic child to move the hands to match the real clock to give them control in the classroom. Now that sounds a little bit like my time time a bit different. But any clock, like I've bought ones from my care and they're really cheap and colored in different bits. So I've moved a sticker on the clock to show start, green, red, finish. Anything like that. Rose, mini date lines and using timer often really helpful. Fiona, now this is good. My miss can't hand or not finishing work and struggles with getting started and time deadlines. This is so important. Thank you, Fiona. This is what I've been trying to say. Some of my children don't like not finishing tasks. So we need to break it down into smaller tasks because what Fiona's experiencing is often then that makes them more anxious and actually then they won't even start if they think they won't finish. I have kids who have what I call white bother syndrome. They go, why should I even start if I'm not even going to finish? The teacher now sends home the work to finish at home and return as it seems to be helping. So I've got kids that work so well and to check the girls where I say, okay, you can finish that at home. So I'm not saying they won't get to finish it. You can take it home to finish. Now I have other kids who hate doing homework at home, but for some children the fact they know they can finish it later and then I would make a list of what needs to be finished later like that to do list that we had a suggestion from, sorry, I've just forgotten their name, but one of the other people mentioned doing a to do list and what's been done, I highly recommend that. Christina, using repetitive language for routines, I love this. Tidy your tables, get your hat and stand behind your chair. See, if we use repetitive language then the child doesn't have to remember or process what we're saying. So tidy your table. Instead of one teacher says everyone pack away and other teacher says time for the next class. So repetitive language, so important. I love that Christina. Allison, develop routines for repetitive activities. I think I've covered that. Gail, I love this boundaries, routine, countdowns, expectations stated and listed. I love it, I love it, I love it. Yes, don't expect the child to really understand. Make sure it's stated and written down. It's like those classrooms that have weak hair we share. What does that really look like for this child? Break it down, explain to them what it is. Having too many distractions around the classroom is not good for anyone. I agree. So minimize those distractions. Thank you, Gail. That is fantastic. Sam said, use graphic organizers. Allow students to use a blank visual diary to take notes so they can record the information the way it best suits their brain. I love it. I love it. And she says don't force students to write online paper all the time. I agree. I don't know. Look around your star room or your family. Everyone uses different types of diaries. We all change actually. I tend to use different diaries all the time in different ways of recording. Allow this child to explore different ways of recording and work out which one best suits Sam. Now, I know that's confusing. Like Sue, you're saying minimized choices. And now you're saying try different diaries. My point is don't expect what works for you to work for them. Try different things. Try different organizers as Sim has, sorry, but Sim not Sam has recommended. Mandy recommended visual representation of the task so that it helps them work independently. And I agree. For packing away your desk, I used to have a photo of that. And I had a mum this year who was having trouble getting a teenage son to tidy his bedroom. So I got her to tidy the bedroom with him and then get the iPad and video what the tidy bedroom look like and her chocolate through. So this is what your desk looks like. This is what the dirty clothes basket looks like. This is what their drawers look like. So talked through each component, so they knew exactly what to expect. And Annalise, I really wanted to cover this, that she said she has a daughter, whose school's recently started using timers, and her daughter has PDA and Zaidid, and she says she hates it. Yeah, she probably would, because part of PDA is wanting to be in control. So she wouldn't like the timer, probably. But what I have found very helpful for PDA and ODD kids around timers is letting them put the timer on, and that's why I love the time timer, because they can put it on. I would also recommend that she always finishes the task and watches the timer count down. So don't, if the task is going to take 10 minutes, I would be putting the timer on for 20 minutes. You have to set it up for success with the timer, and I would do lots of modeling of using the timer. I put the K-CON in the oven, it said 20 minutes on the packet. Oh, but when I looked, it's not cooked enough. That's okay, I can put it on for another five minutes. Oh, the timer said I had 15 minutes to do that task. I haven't got it all done. That's okay, I can take another five minutes. Her worry is what if she doesn't get it done in the time, and so therefore it causes anxiety and she feels out of control. So we need to model what to do if she doesn't get it done in the time frame. Is she gonna put it in a bag to take home to finish? Or is the teacher gonna go, "That's okay?" And I would write social scripts around this. I would also try the time timer schedule, it's not the time, sorry, the digital schedule, and use it to count up rather than count down. So that she can actually record, oh, it took me 15 minutes to do that task. How long did it take me to do the maths? 10 minutes, 15. That will actually give the teacher and the teacher assistant if she's got one. A benchmark for how long she takes to do each task. So instead of recording how you have to get it done in this time, let's start the benchmark of how long does it take, and then use that in future. And we can say to her, "Remember last time "we did a page of maths, it took 20 minutes." So let's put the timer on for 25 minutes today and see if you can get it done. So can you see I'm actually providing the buffer, but also giving her a realistic benchmark. So I hope that makes sense, but also I find with ODD and PDA kids don't use timers for everything, really at first just use it for a few things till she gets used to the idea because it could make her anxious. I do have some tips on that in a previous podcast on using timers and what to do if they make children anxious. Very conscious this has been probably a little bit of a longer podcast, but I really hope you've got some practical tips and ideas remember to go and download the PDF that goes with today because I know I've covered so much information. There's also some great books on executive functioning. I will link to the different timers I use, that book, what did I say, what did I, if I miss anything out or you need any help, please email me, I love hearing from you. I really want to help in any way I can. And one way to help is if when you send me emails, often other people wanted to know that too. So they now put in Facebook, hey Amanda, ask this. If anyone else wanted to know, he's my thoughts. So James listened to the podcast and he wanted to know about this. I've let him know, but any other ideas. So remember we're all learning together. We're all trying to help each other here. I am still learning. The day I stop learning, the day I stop working and loving kids, I never stop loving kids on the spectrum, but I am still learning. Every child I meet teaches me something different. So thank you for listening to this longer podcast. I hope you've got some great tips and strategies to make a difference and look forward to hearing from you in my Facebook or via email. I hope you've got some great tips and strategies from this podcast. If you enjoy learning with me, I highly recommend you think about doing a course this year. Not only do I have courses by me, I have them with people with a lived experience, temple grandin, Dean Biddle or other educators like Laura Kirby on PDA. I have a wealth of courses that'll make a difference to you. So make sure you check out all my online courses because you can learn online anywhere, anytime, in a place that suits you at a speed that suits you. So check out all the online courses that are available to make a difference to you and the children you know.