A Skills-Based Model of Executive Functions
Executive functions (EFs) are the brain’s management skills, the ones that help your child figure out what to do, how to do it, and how it worked. Here is how we understand EFs, why they matter, and how to teach and practice them.
Executive functions have always mattered, but they matter more than ever for children growing up in the twenty-first century. Many of the skills that schools emphasized in the past, such as memorization, handwriting, and checking one’s own work for grammar, are changing as a result of AI and other technologies. In our digital world, the skills that carry the most weight are ones like executive functions, social-emotional learning, and creativity.
Executive functions, in particular, help with:
- being able to organize one’s thoughts around something
- being able to think logically
- being able to plan
- being able to manage one’s own time
- being able to prioritize
- being able to be flexible and adaptable in one’s thinking
These are becoming the primary skills a child needs, which is why understanding and building them is so worthwhile.
Part 2
What They Are, and How Digitally Nutritious Thinks About Them
Executive functions are brain-based capacities and skills that help a person manage thinking, behavior, and feelings. In everyday terms, they help a child figure out what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. One helpful way to picture them is as the conductor of an orchestra, coordinating many separate instruments so they play together. The “what to do” skills include starting tasks, paying attention, persevering, and remembering. The “how to do” skills include planning, organizing, shifting strategies, and managing time.
This is also why a bright child can understand exactly what is expected and still not do it. Much of the challenge is not a lack of the skill, but difficulty using the skill at the moment it is needed.
There are many different definitions of executive functions. We use a skills-based model, one that treats each function as a skill that can be taught and practiced rather than a fixed trait.
Researchers often sort these skills into cold and hot. Cold executive function skills are mostly cognitive, and they help a child manage information, time, and tasks. Hot executive function skills involve emotion, and they help a child manage impulses, frustration, and rewards. Most of our technology guidance focuses on the cold, learning-management skills, while the hot skills are addressed in our behavioral and mood materials.
Our skills-based model is based on the work of Peg Dawson and Richard Guare, described in their book Smart but Scattered. We find it an excellent fit for how children use executive functions in day-to-day life. This list is neither comprehensive nor categorical. The skills overlap constantly, so a single task such as completing homework can call on time management, perseverance, and sustained attention all at once. Difficulties with executive functioning are also common across ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, and behavioral concerns, which is why the same skills come up again and again throughout this site.
Part 3
The Twelve Skills We Focus On
|
Executive function skill |
What it helps your child do |
|---|---|
|
Task Initiation |
Begin a task without procrastinating. |
|
Sustained Attention |
Maintain focus and attention in the presence of distractions. |
|
Working Memory |
Remember relevant information and apply it to the task at hand. |
|
Planning |
Develop a set of strategies to accomplish a goal. |
|
Organization |
Use a systematic approach to achieve a goal. |
|
Time Management |
Respond to things in a timely fashion. |
|
Goal-Directed Persistence |
Persevere with tasks that require sustained effort. |
|
Flexibility |
Be adaptable, improvise, and shift approaches as demands change. |
|
Response Inhibition |
Stop or delay an action rather than act on impulse. |
|
Regulation of Affect |
Manage feelings effectively for decision-making and task completion. |
|
Metacognition |
Self-monitor and observe one’s own thinking. |
|
Social Thinking |
Respond appropriately to social situations. |
Part 4
How Executive Functions Develop
Executive functioning skills develop throughout childhood and into early adulthood. Children as young as eight months show simple, consciously controlled behaviors that reflect them, and as children grow, they get better at solving problems and holding thoughts and images in mind. Children under the age of 6 do not typically need to apply executive functioning skills at home or at school. While demands keep rising in later elementary school, children who struggle with executive functioning skills may not be noticed until the middle school years, when organization and planning for the future become prominent.
It was once believed that brain-based capacities like these could not be changed. We now know otherwise. The prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until the early to mid-30s, and environment, school experience, and enrichment can build new brain connections over an extended period. In children with ADHD and problems with executive control, the relevant circuitry often shows a maturational delay. These children benefit most from a proactive approach, one that provides training and support and creates real opportunities to practice these skills.
Part 5
Where You Will Notice Them
For many parents, school is where executive function challenges first become visible. Organization and planning are what let a child write down the homework, remember to do it, and bring it back the next day. Task initiation, sustained attention, and persistence are what it takes to start and finish a long-term project. Working memory sits underneath reading, holding the sounds of a word together to decode it and holding earlier sentences in mind to make sense of a passage. Metacognition shows up in the newer math, where a child must not only find the answer but explain the thinking behind it.
You will also see these skills at home, often more clearly than any test would show. A child with strong task initiation and organization gathers their books and clothes for school without constant prompting. Planning and persistence show up when a child saves for something special or works steadily on a long project. Flexibility and emotional control appear when a child adjusts to a change in plans or loses a game without falling apart. Strong working memory lets a child follow multi-step directions, do math in their head, or keep track of the rules of a complex game while playing it. If you want a more structured picture, questionnaires and rating scales, used together with teachers and a psychologist, can help map out where a child’s strengths and struggles lie.
Part 6
A Skills-Based #part-6Model: Accommodation, Support, Practice, Mastery
Helping a child build executive function skills tends to move through four overlapping stages. There is a great deal of overlap among them, and progress usually runs from accommodation to support to practice to synthesis and mastery.
1
Accommodation
Adapting the situation to the child. You recognize a child’s current limitations and adjust expectations accordingly, for example, less homework or more time to complete a test. At this stage, you are not trying to improve the skill directly, but to help the child feel more confident.
2
Neurofeedback and Biofeedback for Self-Regulation
External structures, often called scaffolding, are built around the child while their skill improves. Help getting started on homework, or with the first steps of cleaning a bedroom, works much like the training wheels on a bicycle. An important part of support is helping the child notice which executive skills they are using to get the task done.
3
Practice
Guided rehearsal of the new skill. Repeated practice, such as organizing a backpack each day or using an agenda, strengthens organizational and planning skills. Naming the skills being used and how they help is what makes them stick. Keeping practice going matters too, through interest, visual reminders, praise, meaningful rewards, and a real sense of accomplishment.
4
Synthesis and Mastery
Owning the skill: knowing when, how, and where to use it, and being motivated to apply it. This is the most sophisticated stage, and it usually follows the others. A child may need coaching at first, but then takes over. Mastery is marked by metacognition, the child evaluating how well the skill is working, and by generalization, using it across many different situations.
A note on support. When the support is a technology, it does not have to fade toward independence. Using a tool as an ongoing support is one of the strategies we most want to promote. Here, practice is what teaches a child to use the tool to support themselves, until it becomes a habit and a kind of expertise. That expertise may lie less in the bare skill, such as organization, and more in reliably using the technology to stay organized, and in knowing when to reach for it.
Everything else on this site builds on this model. Our guides look at how everyday tools, technology, and play can support and strengthen each of these skills, one at a time.
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More about Neurotechnologies and Executive Functions
Finding the Right Technology for Your Child
No single app, game, or platform is right for every neurodivergent child. That’s why Digitally Nutritious maintains a searchable database of technology guides designed specifically for neurodivergent kids and teens.
Each guide explains why a tool may be helpful, which skills it supports, what to watch out for, and how to use it intentionally.
The goal isn’t to find “more” technology—but to find better-fit technology that supports your child’s development, strengths, and long-term growth.