Executive Functioning: The Hidden Obstacle in Autism

What is executive functioning, and why is it so important?

Executive functioning refers to your ability to process information. Skills included in executive functioning are organization, planning, attention, and inhibiting yourself from making inappropriate responses to verbal communication and situations.

In the following article, we’ll look at what executive functioning is, its role in our everyday lives, and how it affects people on the autism spectrum.

What Is Executive Functioning?

Executive functioning refers to your ability to process information.

For many people on the autism spectrum, problems with executive functioning are significantly worse, and they have a lot of issues with self-regulating their emotions, sequencing information, staying organized, and planning.

For example, people may be able to focus on minor details but not be able to recognize how those details would fit into a bigger picture.

Trouble paying attention in a classroom or rigid learning environment can be difficult.

When preparing tasks, people with executive functioning issues will have trouble organizing their actions and thoughts into the correct sequence of steps needed to complete the task. People that suffer from executive functioning issues typically also have problems with impulse control.

Other people may have problems with complex thinking, which requires holding and maintaining more than one train of thought at a time. For example, solving complicated problems often involves focusing on more than one part of the problem at once.

One area that poses significant problems for someone that faces challenges with executive functioning is the classroom which typically relies on structure and a group learning environment.

Tips to Assist with Executive Functioning

Below are some tips to help people that suffer from executive functioning issues:

Utilize a logbook to track homework assignments between the classroom and home and include progress updates.

• Include assignment checklists to help break up more significant assignments into smaller, more manageable sections.
• Encourage the students to utilize a day planner to help them stay on track during the day as they navigate between different classes.
• Keep schedules posted clearly to enable all students to stay on track as they manage different tasks and assignments.
• Allow enough time to give adequate instructions, repeat instructions if necessary, and offer individual assistance and written instruction accompaniment to verbal instructions.
• Try to position students or people with known executive functioning issues closer to the teacher and further away from other students or people that may distract them.

Executive Functioning – Conclusion

Dealing with executive functioning issues can be difficult for anyone, especially for someone that’s on the autism spectrum and also facing various other problems, including social interaction and communication skills.

Offering written instructions along with verbal instructions and breaking those instructions down into smaller, more manageable chunks makes it a lot easier for students and children to complete tasks when dealing with executive functioning issues.

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