Executive Functioning Graphic Organizer

EXECUTIVE
FUNCTIONI
NG
PLANNING
o The ability to think about the future or mentally anticipate how to carry out a task or
reach a goal.
o Visualize a goal and then determine what is needed to reach it.
o Subtasks to planning:
-Assessing needs
-Formulating options
-Evaluating those options
-Sequencing options to achieve a goal
o Run plans by others for advice
o Manage time efficiently
o Planning helps enhance productivity
o What do you need to get started?
o Cognitive flexibility, working memory, reasoning, and problem solving come into play
ATTENTION
o Where your concious mind is focused.
o Closely tied to working memory.
o Attention is NOT narrow.
o Top-down control: Internal guidance of attention based on priot knowledge, willful
plans, and current goals.
o Bottom-up control: Attentional guidance purely by externally driven factors to stimuli
that are salient because of their inherent proprties realitve to the background.
o Poor working memory makes it hard to filter out sensory inputs which allows the
bottom-up system to dominate and working memory suffers
o Reducing sensory distractions to quiet the bottom-up system makes it easier for top-
down system to direct attentionn towards the task at hand.
WORKING MEMORY
o Being able to hold pieces of information in your head while completing a task.
o Autistic individuals tend to struggle with working memory.
o Struggle to filter out environmental stimuli = Poor working memory
o Selective attention: The ability to direct attention toward important information while
letting unimportant information exist around the periphery of consciousness.
o Attention and inhibition come into play.
PROBLEM SOLVING
o Identifying and overcoming obstacles to reach a pre-defined goal.
o The problem solving cycle:
o Identify the Problem
o Define the Problem
o Form a Strategy
o Organize Information
o Allocate Resources
o Monitor Progress
o Evaluate results
o Recognizing that a problem even exists can be difficult.
o It is easier to solve others problems than it is to solve your own.
o Attention, initiation, monitoring, working memory, planning, reasoning, inhibition,
and cognitive flexibility come into play.
VERBAL REASONING
o The ability to understand, analyze, and think critically about concepts.
o Requires prioritizing, organizing, remembering, and manipulating information in
complex ways.
o Can rely on the ability to think in grey areas and make temporary illogical
assumptions.
o Verbal reasoning often has a social element to it- to successfully analyze another
persons words, you need to also understand the coded social messages that underpin
those words.
o Working memory and attention come into play.
o It can help to pull the verbal part of the equation out
o Write things down, diagram concepts, make timelines, visually organize by
color/shape
COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY
o All about change
o Changing your mind, opinion, beliefs,
o Coping with change
o Understanding why change happens
o The ability to shift your thinking/attention in response to change.
o Task switching
o Considering multiple aspects of a situation at a time.
o Impaired EF makes it harder to adapt to change by forming new thought or behavior
patterns
o Monitoring, initiation, and problem solving come into play.
INHIBITION
o Ability to block or suppress a though or action – consciously or subconsciously.
o To focus on one thing you have to inhibit something else which is hard because of
distractions and environmental stimuli.
o Extreme difficulty with inhibition can lead to impulsivity.
o Attention and working memory come into play.
o 3 realms:
o Motor Inhibition
o Cognitive Inhibition
o Emotional Inhibition
INITIATION
o The “getting started” phase of an activity.

o Do smaller tasks to get you motivated for the main task.
o Set fake deadlines and rewards to help complete tasks.
o People who struggle with initiation are often labeled lazy or unmotivated.
o Attention, inhibition, and planning come into play.
MONITORING
o Troubleshooting of EF
o Key part of planning and problem solving.
o Being able to troubleshoot the problem and adjust actions accordingly.
o Being able to monitor actions so you can quickly correct errors.
o Loosely related to cognitive flexibility.
o The ability to monitor your action can vary day by day or depending on the task.

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EXECUTIVE

o The “getting started” phase of an activity.

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