Smart today, we felt the need to res
share this wonderful and important episode with you.
Episode 201
executive functioning with Peg Dawson. This school year
is just around the corner and executive functioning
is such a huge part of school and
life success. In this episode Peg talks about
modifying the environment, keeping the supports while habits.
Form and how getting started is often the
hardest part. Would you please take a minute
to give our podcast 5 stars and leave
a review. It really helps the podcast by
helping others find us, and it means a
lot to us. Without further ado, please enjoy
this masterclass class with executive functioning extra, peg
Dawson. Let's dig in. You want to learn
faster,
but sometimes working harder
is just that the answer you have to
learn.
Smarter,
the educational therapy podcast.
Hi, Smart is Welcome to episode 321
of Learns smarter, The educational therapy podcast. Guest.
I'm Stephanie Pitt. And I reach rachel Kat.
And today, we are excited to res share
this episode because it is so wonderful, and
it means so much and is just so
packed with information and Peg Dawson is really
1 of the leaders in executive functioning. So
it was just a joy to have her
on, and we hope you enjoy this episode.
Smart
today, we are beyond honored and excited to
welcome Doctor Peg Dawson to the podcast.
You guys know peg, Dawson, she has written
the books on executive function skills, and as
we talk about in this podcast,
Why she calls some executive skills, which totally
makes sense, and we're gonna be changing the
name of our series to executive function skills
from here on out. And we're... So excited
to talk to her about
what led her to the exploration of executive
function skills, her framework for supporting,
executive skills and the difference between foundational and
advanced executive skills. Stefan and I are both
doing this opening today because it was such
a monumental
episode for us right after episode 200,
and I just wanted to publicly think stuff
for her goal directed persistence
and getting
doctor Peg Dawson on the podcast because it
was truly a coup
and you'll hear us totally girl crushing over
her, but it was truly a master class,
and it was such an honor to be
able to have this conversation with her, Steph,
I am curious. What were your key takeaways
from this conversation with her. And number 1,
I have to say to tell everybody. When
she agreed to do this, she said to
me, I had asked her a long time
ago. And when she came back and I
asked her again, she said she admired my
goal directed persistence. Mh. You guys, the verbiage.
Is just so point. It made me so
happy inside that she used. That language. I
love that she said no too because no
is a complete sentence. She did say no
originally. But she opened the door for you
to go back and you did. That's what
I do. So I guess my takeaways is
her breaking down the
foundational skills and the advanced skills. Mh. That
I think was really, really important. Really helpful.
And I didn't really think about them like
that. Hire. So I think that's gonna be
something that's really going to direct a lot
of my future conversations with
my team, and I'm sure you too, and
with my clients and parents and teachers and
all of that. So I think that's the
biggest takeaway I have. What about you? First
of all, I'd love the opportunity that this
podcast affords us to get to ask questions.
Mh. To get to ask questions of why
executive skills, why not executive functioning and her
answer was so clear. I was thinking about
same thing. I know you were. And
I was like, I just need to ask.
And what else am I given the opportunity
to be in front of an expert of
this caliber. Yes. And so I'm just grateful
for this podcast for giving me that opportunity
personally.
And I love her answer so much. I
loved that we got to talk to her
about the word lazy and why that's such
a trigger word,
And, you know, I really really appreciated the
conversation that we had on Patreon as well.
On Patreon, we talked to her about what...
Covid made her realize about executive skills. And
I thought that was a really interesting conversation
to have, because I agree. Yeah. And... But
I hadn't thought about it in such a
concrete way. And as you know, steph, I
love when people come on the podcast,
and it feels like I'm in a college
cost again, and that's what this episodes and
the Patreon
conversation felt like for me. And then the
other thing that I really appreciated about our
conversation on Patreon is she talked about how
her work informed parenting and how parenting informed
her work. Mh. And that was really, really
nice to be able to have that dialogue
with her as well. If you are not
yet a part of our patreon, go to
WWW
dot patreon dot com slash learn smarter podcast.
You can get access to that extended conversation
with doctor Peg dawson,
and all of the previous earlier extended
conversations for 5 dollar a month.
Donation that supports the work that we do
here on the podcast. And as a reminder,
if you want early access to episodes because
you guys know we are done in advanced
especially now that you know that we recorded
6 months so that I could have a
6 month maternity leave, you can also get
episodes a week early, and that is for
a 10 dollar a month donation, and, yes,
you still
will get access to all those earlier
conversations you can scroll back. On everything that
we have posted on Patreon.
So honored to have Doctor Peg dawson on
the podcast. I hope she will come back
Maybe she will, but, you know what? I
think this is 1 of those episodes where
you guys sit back, listen,
take it in, and then listen again.
Hi, Sp. Welcome to episode 201 of Learns
smarter at the Educational Therapy Podcast. I'm Stephanie
Pitt. And my rachel cap. And today, we
have...
Peg, Dawson with us. Hi peg. Hello, everyone.
Nice of be here.
Yay.
Hey.
We've been very excited. Steps up me a
attacks when
you agree just like a got picked off
and I was so excited.
So thank you for taking the time to
come mom with us. We're very honored to
have you. And,
why don't we start off by having Tell.
Who you are and what you do and
who you do for. Okay. Sure. So my
background is school psychology.
I work. For 16 years as a school
psychologist in the public schools in Maine in
New Hampshire, which is the Area I'm from.
And then I joined my colleague and ultimately
my, C author, a guy named Doctor Ware
or Dick ware. We had a private practice
for Ron, then we merged to the local
Community Mental Health Center. C
in ports of New Hampshire. And and that
Ce Mental Health Center where. We both work
on a very part time basis at this
point
So in that work, has spent much of
my career doing assessments for kids with learning
and attention problems.
And
that's what brought me to executive skills, particularly
working with kids with Adhd. I feel quickly
realized that the American Psychiatric
Association
criteria for Adhd, which is problems with attention
or problems with hyper
impulses be or both really didn't begin to
describe the problems I saw these diagnostic it's
having. I saw huge problems with time management
and planning an organization and those kinds of
things. And I remember talking my colleague Dick
about at the time. It's Now and I
boasted our doctor work at the university of
Virginia although we were there at different times,
but he went on to do a post
doc in neuro psychology at children's Hospital in
Boston.
So as I was describing
these issues, he said, well back. Those are
executive skills. Well, this was the late eighties
early nineties and people... Not using that term
much in those days. So, Dick and I
decided we really wanted to understand this field
a whole lot better. We wanna know what
are these skills
for
and develop what's going on in the brain,
how do they impact school performance? And most
importantly, how do you help kids with week
executives skills become more successful students?
And so that's what led to our writing.
And we've written any number of books now
on executive skills. It geared to different audiences.
The first 1 we wrote was for professionals
called executive skills and children adolescents,
that 1 is now into its third edition.
But after writing that, we realized there was
a huge role for parents and all of
this. So that's what led us write Smart
scattered.
I'm a recently smart Scattered teens.
We've also written a couple of books aimed
more in adult population. We have a book
on coaching.
We have a plan that goes along with
our coaching model. And I guess the 1
other thing I should mention just because it
often comes up in conversations. At the same
time, I was doing all this... Professionally, I
was raising 2 kids of my own. I
have 2 sons who are now well into
adulthood, but my older son at the age
of 14 was diagnosed with an attention disorder.
So I actually feel like a lot of
what I've learned about executive skills, particularly in
the intervention side has come as much from
my experiences a mom. As my experience is
a psychologist.
And I do a lot of parent presentations.
And and when I tell parents is, and
I say about being my mom. With 1
of these kids is you get the longitudinal
perspective,
You get to see what they like when
they grow up. It's true. And I tell
my audience is all the time. Most of
these kids turn out fine. Yep. You know,
some need a little help along the way
and certainly, at therapists are great source for
that assistance. I've been a couple of workshops.
In, I think California and Texas for ed
therapist. And we don't have many of those
in the northeast. So when I first started
doing those workshops and talking with people about
what is it there anyway. I realized, oh,
it's such a nice fit for
our work and for getting our work 2
kids and to schools, you know, to get
them the help they need.
So that's sorry in a nutshell. Yeah.
I love you most kids. Yeah. Just fine.
Yeah. So let's just repeat that for everybody.
Yep. Most kids are not just fine. Yeah.
Because they're so worried. I get it though.
Yep. Your book is like the Bible of
executive functioning skills. Right? This is where everybody
starts, everybody gets the foundation from you.
So 1 of the things that we're really
interested in is
how they show up in school,
and daily living
because they go hand in hand and a
lot of people don't realize they go hand
in hand. So what do you tell
parents who are experiencing
a lot of struggle at home, or the
kids aren't doing as well as they hope
in the classroom.
Yeah. And that's a really good question because
they may show up differently at home schools
sometimes more see it more than
schools do particularly in the early years
because in a way, what schools do is
they provide
additional structure and support for kids. So they
sort of scaffold what they're asking kids to
do. Schools And so some of these kids
can get by for a while in school
with just what teachers do naturally in the
classroom.
But parents are often seeing it at home.
So I actually... When I'm doing an evaluation
and interviewing parents, I'm asking them a whole
lot more about what's going on at home
than what's... Going on of school. Mh mh.
I do ask about school, and I collect
a lot of information from the school as
well because that's really important. But the questions
I ask parents to get at what's going
on at home. I asked them about homework,
of course, because
kids need the higher level executive skills to
do homework going especially if they're expected to
do it independently, then they need to do
school work. So you're gonna see problems there.
I asked skip about daily routines? Like, how
does your child to handle getting ready for
school in the morning or getting ready for
bed or handling meal times,
because all of those require
some critical executive skills. My ass got chores.
Mh. Our kids asked you do chores. I
mean, I'm in sort of a big believer
in chores because it's a great way to
learn executive skills. Mh. And mean it takes
time and effort to make kids do chores
Kiosk. And with the busy parents, that x
time is something, they feel like, they don't
have to put in and so they end
up doing 4 kids, You know, the kinds
of things that kids probably need to learn
to do on their own. Those are the
basic sort of venues where executive skill challenges
will present themselves at home. And then, of
course, I'm getting further information. I mean, when
I'm doing an interview, I'm not just asking
about executive skills in general, I'm trying to
pinpoint what exec skills are we talking about.
So if the kids bedroom is a disaster,
I'm immediately thinking organization. If the kid is
continually forgetting to bring stuff to her from
school or forgetting instructions from homework, then I'm
thinking working memory.
If the kid is leaving home till just
before bedtime, then I'm thinking, oh, this sounds
like a problem with task initiation. So all
of those questions I'm asking parents are off...
Also helping me sort of 0 in a...
Okay. Which executive skills are the biggest concern
and then, you know, what do we do
about them? But take a step back even
though we're sure that our audience has richard
books.
Can you give us an overview of the
executive skills you see them. Okay. Sure. So
first of all, their brain based skills. I'm
sure, and again, if people in our books
at all. They know that it managed out
of the front lobes of the brain, which
is the part of the brain right behind
the forehead. That another really important piece of
information for both parents and teachers understand as
these skills take 25 years at a minimum
to reach full maturation. Yeah. And any child
who's dealing with an attention disorder or any
other kind of neuro development or learning disorder
that's gonna be delayed beyond that. Full there
are a lot of different frameworks
for
labeling, organizing, defining executive skills
where Dick and I started with. We started
with this. Question Or all the skills are
out there that people are talking about? Which
ones are the most critical for school success?
And could we define a pool those skills
that didn't go overboard because when you read
the research, the range in terms of number
is 1 to 33.
I mean, some of the early researchers maintained.
There's really only 1 Ago, we called the
Sun executive. At the opposite end the extreme
guy named George M is developed a rating
scale where he's just in assessing 33 different
executive skills.
Well, we didn't wanna overwhelm people, Either parents
or teachers because our messages is if kids
aren't acquiring these discussing skills naturally, then we
need to explicitly teach the skills and we
get need the opportunity to practice them. Yep.
So I can't ask anyway to teach 33
skills. Yeah. And luck, most kids have some
skills that are stronger than others so you
can 0 in on the skills that are
problematic.
The reason they're called executives skills is because
they're the skills required to execute tasks. So
that's where the executive part comes in. But
my favorite definition, I teach your class at
the university universities how they may every summer
and I think it was in the first
class I taught I had a second grade
teacher in the class was trying to figure
out how do I explain executive skills to
second graders
And what she came up with this... They're
the skills you need to get things done.
Yeah. Which is such a great way of
describing it. So it's not We often think
about school as taking in knowledge and taking
in learning.
Executive skills require you to put out what
you've learned. And So, again, as task initiation,
sustained attention. You know, response inhibition, the the
ability to manage your impose this time management
planning organization,
emotional control being able to manage your emotions.
And then at the upper end, which we
really don't expect with kids. I mean, they
begin to emerge on middle school or later
is things like meta recognition and gold directed
persistence.
You know, I like to call
school learning how to adult. There And I
think when you say that to kids, they're
a little bit more oh, okay. That makes
a little more sense. It's more applicable. Right?
They're
because that's where they wanna go. Right? So
they all wanna be adults. So I have
to say, it takes a lot. We know
that. It takes all the things working simultaneously
in order to be
independent or successful in school. Mh. Mh. And
being behind in some of these skills, especially
with kids that have Adhd is very,
very normal. I mean, I don't know what
what other word to use, but, like, expected.
Mh. At my product as cap educational therapy
group, we focus on learners who either have
Adhd and or executive functioning challenges
And what of the things that you teach
about are best practices.
So
you have a student who is really start
in school. What are the best practices as
you see it in the modern worlds
in terms of helping them sort of strengthen
those executive skills. We sort hammer this home
in our book. She start by
modifying the environment
to basically make it more supportive or less
punishing for kids. So you've got a kid
who keeps for getting instructions
Ultimately, you want to give them strategies for
remembering better. But in the meantime, you don't
wanna make them feel terrible for always forgetting
instructions.
So you modify the environment
by giving them a visual by giving them
the instructions 1 piece at a time
by giving them checklist,
So that's where you start. Just assuming okay.
This kid's got weak working memory and we
need to put in sports around that, So,
you can be successful, Basically.
And then we look at... Okay. So if
this kid is weak the skill, how can
we teach the skill? How can we help
the child learn the skill?
We never do that in the abstract we're
always doing that in the context of what
the kid needs to do anyway. Every once
a while, someone would say to me. I'm
gonna start an executive skills summer camp.
And I always sort of pull back when
they say that because I think, that's sort
of learning the skills and
isolation I'm sure a therapists have discovered this
The best way is when you're... How can
kid do something he has to do anyway.
Yep. A homework assignment or getting through a
class assignment or figuring out how to keep
his stuff organized,
it has to be real to they kid.
And if you impose was an extra layer
of Now we're gonna practice working memory and
a totally useless situation and mh nobody's invested
in that. Yeah. That's true. And then the
1 other piece we throw in there because
basically, executive skills are a Cabo acquisition. We're
learning habits.
And in the early stages of learning a
habit. It's hard work. I it's d pleading,
it takes a lot of energy. It's not
much fun. And so we will very often
throw in incentives doing entice skid to do
the hard work of practicing to get better
at it. Because we assure them if you
practice you will get better. We know that's
how the brain works. The longer you practice
something the easier it is to do it,
the less brain power you're using to get
stuck on And so if we can build
in in Send... And we're never possible We
rely on pretty simple and sundays. Like, okay.
Is there's something really fun you wanna do
is soon as you get done with whatever
you have to do here for practice. Oh,
you wanna do that. Okay. So keep that
in the back of your mind because that's
gonna be the fun thing you be getting
to very shortly.
In terms of letting kids know, wow. I
saw you working really hard to enjoy your
temper. And mean, sometimes we'll have parents and
kids develop points this where they get their
earn points for the various things that they're...
Like, if they're practicing getting their homework started
before 05:00 in the evening, they might get
a point for that. If they're getting points
for keeping their room clean and then those
points can translate into incentives. But so they're
varying levels here, but our favorite is, you
know, keep it simple.
A lot of parents are resistant to the
idea of using incentives.
Because I think the kids should wanna do
it anyway. And so that's where I start
talking about. You know, this is tough work.
This is hard work. And so we just
wanna make it a little easier by making
a little more fun. So that's basically it.
I mean, we have some strategies for individual
executive skills, but that's the basic sick framework
of how we approach it? Now, quick question.
What about
students
who even though you set up incentives
still don't have the drive to do it.
I mean, that's an interesting way of thinking
about it because when the child is not
doing something, There are 2 ways of thinking
about it, are they not doing it because
they can't do it because they won't do
it. Our default is always because they can't
do it. Mh. So even though people will
use words like driving motor ovation, we step
back and say. Do we really know for
sure that this kid is capable of doing
that long enough to be successful. Yeah. Because...
Oh, my gosh. I love that. You know,
any kid can start something, It's especially say,
where they're prompting them to start. But can
they stick with it long enough to achieve
success.
The other piece of our model, which we've
started emphasizing even more in recent years is
really engaging the child and deciding what they
wanna work on and what they wanna try
to get better at. Rather than imposing
a goal on them. I mean, obviously, sometimes
we have to do school work that needs
to get done their assignments etcetera Right. Whenever
possible if we engage a child and... Okay.
Where do you wanna start? What do you
wanna work on? And let's if we can
figure out a game plan, so that can
happen. I love you saying that. Yay.
What's the deer? Because that's what we do.
A lot of times as that therapist parents
come in and want us to do things
in a certain order and in a certain
way, and we firmly believe we have to
start
in a place that makes sense for the
child. Good. So you saying that just even
more affirm. So thank you. And I wanna
go back to 1 of the examples that
you gave, which is just getting homework started
before 5PM.
That's such a small nugget of a goal,
and a lot of parents are like, we
want homework done before dinner.
And we have to break it down so
that it's easily achievable and the kid has
buy in for as well. So I'd loved
it when you said that example, I'm like,
yes, this is what the parents need to
hear, you know, journey of a thousand miles
as my dad would always say to me.
And I think the other thing which parents
don't up and recognize
is that
getting started is hard, and you can practice
that
by itself. In fact, it was
teacher coaching seminar every year, and and 1
of the coaches who took my class last
was working with a teenager.
She was ambitious really arguing... Low income family
single parent,
financial issues the family was dealing with. And
when they realized that task initiation was 1
of her weaker skills. Her code center. Okay.
So we'll just practice getting started. And so
we're gonna start with someone really simple and
really easy, but you make a plan for
what you're gonna start and when you're gonna
start it. And the girl was like surprise.
You mean, I can just practice getting started.
Oh, I can practice that
because so often we pair that with getting
finished. And doing work. Right.
Yes.
It's so true. And the goal can be
so small
in order to have success.
Yeah. And we always say success breeds success.
Right? So the more they're successful
the more they want to do... I would
love it if you would share a little
bit more about something that we talk about
on the podcast podcasts is that Learners who
struggle with executive functioning skills are often 2
to 3 years developmental behind their peers. But
the executive functioning demands that we have on
learners.
Particularly as they go from elementary school to
middle school. It's quite a significant leap. It's
where I see a lot of challenges in
my practice.
We frequently get calls from parents of 6
and seventh graders who don't know what happened.
And then we throw Covid into it.
So everything has sort of shifted as a
result of that. But I'm wondering if you
can talk a little bit about
what normal executive skills development actually looks like.
And then a little bit about what it
actually is in our population that we work
with. Yeah. Sure. So I think I came
up with this sort of framework after
the last book we published. So I didn't
all my workshops but it's not necessarily in
our books. We've identified 11 executive skills that
we focus on, and I've divided them into
2 groups, which I label out foundational skills
and advanced skills.
And the foundational skills are the ones that
emerge first,
many of them, you begin to see signs
of even in the first years of life.
I have a rough order for that, which
is somewhat backed up by research, but hospital
a little speculative.
So response and addition, the ability to control
your impulses is is the first skill to
emerge, followed by working memory,
followed by emotional control,
the ability to manage your motions, all of
those begin to emerge in the first year
of life. Flexibility,
maybe somewhat later, although, I'm pretty sure you
can see some in influx kids even in
the first year of life.
Some of those kids who
are diagnosed with c.
And up a number of them being influx
kids later on. So, again, that's the first
sure right. Oh, interesting. That's something anecdotal. Right?
It totally made sense. Yeah. And then
sustained detention and taps
initiation So that and that's more directed towards,
you know, doing work, basically. So those are
the foundational skills.
The advanced skills, things like organization and planning
and time management and gold directed persistence and
meta cognition. Those are later developing skills.
So
when I'm working with parents and teachers of
elementary school kids, what I tell them is
focus on the foundational skills. Mh. Because those
are the skills that develop first. And I'm
always saying, if you put interventions in place
for those skills even with kids were struggling
with them,
you will say progress by the time they
leave elementary school. If you keep the interventions
in place long enough, and that's the other
thing we don't respect enough sometimes we expect
things to work fast, and they don't necessarily
do that.
When I'm talking with parents and teachers and
middle school kids,
What I tell them is that if you
expect those kids to be proficient at those
advanced skills by middle school,
you must be really frustrated.
Yeah. And that things like time management planning,
organization. U. Gold directed persistence
and this is typically developing kids I'm talking
about now. Those skills are just emerging at
the middle school level.
And what we know about emerging skills is
they look great 1 day and lousy you
the next. Mh. If you think about learning
to ride it away. You don't go from
not being able to ride it all to
being able to ride 3 miles smoothly and
without falling down. Mh. No. There's a lot
of falling down that goes in the early
stages of wanting to ride a bike. And
even into freshman sophomore year in high school,
those advanced skills, many typical students are still
feeling their way with that.
Many typical students still need a parents sort
of keeping an eye on them and prompting
them, hey, Have you started that essay sa
yet.
What's your plan for studying for a task,
those kinds of things. Actually, let me say
1 more thing, then we'll talk about how
the delay plays out.
When I'm talking with parents or teachers
secondary level kids, middle school or high school
who have significant executive skill challenges.
I give that statement advice start with a
foundational skills. Mh. Because those foundational skills are
building blocks for the later skills.
And when you're working on task initiation the
sustained detention, you're are working on time management
and chances are. It's those 2 pieces that
are really getting in the way with time
management.
And in fact, a few years ago I
did it out a workshop in Georgia a
private school
it. They actually you want me to spend
most of the day with kids, which was
kind of fun. Usually, when I go into
a school, they want me to
talk with teachers or parents are both, and
I did that as well at this school,
but they wanted me spend most of they
talking with kids. Not every kid. The kids
in their learning centers. So these are kids
probably the kind of kids you see, Adhd
or or learning challenges.
And so before I came, I asked the
teachers to administer
our kid version of our executive skill questionnaire
to all the kids I was gonna be
talking with, and then tab it and tell
me what the 5 biggest executive scale challenges
were.
And this was just grade 6 through 12.
I decided, I wasn't sure it'd would be
useful for me to talk with the younger
kids, but 6 fall, they might be able
to listen to an expert on, and still
to take something away. So when they sent
me back that compilation, the top 5 executives
go weaknesses that kids in grade 6 to
12 we're reporting
for all those foundational skills.
So it just reinforced
This is where we've gotta start. Now it
may be that they didn't have the Meta
skills to realize, oh, I need meta cognition,
and it's not working wrong for me. But
I think the fact that they were identifying
those foundational skills just said to me. This
is where we need to put our time
and energy. And It not to you abandon
the others. And again, at Therapist. You do
a lot of modeling.
You do a lot of talking kids through.
Okay. This is what organization looks like. This
is how we plan. That's really important to
do. It's just that we're not shooting for
kids to be proficient and those skills early
on in high school.
With kids with Adhd, And I say this
just because Russ Barkley has been saying this
for years, so I consider Barclay the sort
of the world's leading expert on Adhd.
He maintains the kids with Adhd lagged about
30 percent behind typically developing peers in terms
of executive skills.
So that's a gap that widen this kids
get older. You know, 6 year old of,
adhd is more like a 4 year old.
Right? 9 year old small like a 6
year old. A 12 year old smaller like
a 9... If a 15 year old of
Adhd adhd is more like a 10 year
old. Think about the different
expectations we have for fourth graders and temp
graders.
Because that's what kids with Adhd are struggling
with when they get to high school. They're
struggling with that gap and they're struggling with
the teacher and impaired expectation of that gap...
Shouldn't be there and there must be something
wrong with a kid.
As you're talking, I wanna ask you a
terminology question. And forgive me if this is
a really simple question with an obvious answer.
When Stefan and I are on the podcast
when we're talking to our teams, we use
the term executive function. Question Is that intentional?
What is the thought behind it? Should we
be changing our language on it?
Or is that just preference?
Yeah. I'm so glad you asked that? Because.
This is how I start my workshops When
I talk about, there's not a lot of
consensus in the field about executives sales starting
with the name and the the more common
name is executive functions. But it was intentional
for us. We wanted the emphasis to be
on skills. You know, skill buys whatever level
you're at, You can get better at it.
Function doesn't give me that same flavor. And,
when I think about a function, I think,
okay. It means use, and then I start
thinking about refrigerators and copy machines. It's gonna
be the work or they don't. Yeah.
A lot of people... What I've seen the
transition, and I'd suggest you do this is
and we they've talked about executive function skills.
And we do say that. Yeah. Yeah. And
again, it's subtle, but you can explain it.
I think it's helpful for everybody to understand
that, you know, skill something you get better
at. You get better at it through practice.
I love the way language sort of informs
and how we think about things. But we
were just talking about that earlier.
And glad I asked.
Yeah. I am too.
I don't know. I was just taking it
all in, but can you just
1 more time for the audience? In case
they weren't ready for when you set it.
What are... Can you just list the foundational
skills again? Yes. Yeah. I'd be happy to.
Although most of the names are self explanatory
response and inhibition is the first 1. And
that's the ability to stop and think before
you say or do something. Okay? That's impulse
controller self control. The next 1 is working
memory, and that's the ability to hold information
in mind.
While you're performing a complex task, but it's
also holding in mind so for instance if
you wake up in the morning, and you
open the refrigerator and you see you don't
have milk anything Oh, I gotta buy milk
on my way home from work. If you
actually remembered to stop and buy milk on
your way home from work, that's working memory.
It's that ability to sort of hold in
the radar,
the things you have to keep track of.
And by the way, when I've done work
for schools with kids with d or more
complex learning disabilities,
what those teachers tell me is working memory
is the weakest skill for those.
And that's why they struggle with memorizing math
facts or site words or spelling words. I
mean, all of that is for underlies automatic
authenticity.
And when, the more repetition, we
applied to learning a skill, the better we
learn it, but with kids with weak working
memory. They need multiples of those repetitions.
Mh.
And I just had a baby, and that's
the thing that has left my brain 100
percent. It is my working memory. So interesting,
you should say that because... Yeah, in situations
of stress or information overload,
very often working memory goes. Yeah. I mean,
all executive skills tend to get degraded under
those situations. But working memory really takes a
hit.
So the third executive skill is emotional control.
I mean, there are different names for that
1 as well. Emotional regulation might be a
better way of driving it, but it's the
ability to manage your emotions in order to
achieve goals or accomplish tasks or whatever.
And then the next 1 is flexibility.
It's hard to talk about flexibility and without
using some kind of metaphor ability to go
with the flow.
To handle unexpected changes
in plans or new events or new information,
emotional control and flexibility often go together influx
book kids off and have trouble managing their
emotions. Mh.
And then
sustained attention. So that's the ability to
was something long enough to get it done.
And 1 other thing I should say about
sustained attention is that, you know,
because I worked, know, for 40 years with
kids with attention disorders. I've seen a lot
of kids, you know, the parents have been
pushed into my office by
pediatricians for a teacher because someone thinks circuit
as attention problems. And the parent will say
to me, my kid can't have Ad. He
can play video games for hours?
Mh.
Well,
so what I tell parents is, it's not
the kids can't pay attention kids with Can't
pay attention that they trouble making themselves pay
attention. Mh. That's not gonna show up with
video games. Where parents gonna see it at
3 places, homework chores,
boring daily routines. That's where you're gonna see
problems with with sustained attention.
And then finally, task initiation, which is basically
the opposite of.
Nation the ability to begin tasks promptly. And
the the 1 other thing I often remind
people here is that I actually think this
is the less and hardest of skill to
acquire.
I think there are a lot of adults
that struggle with
with task initiation. And interestingly enough, those same
adults may be annoyed because their kids aren't
getting the homework started No. Mh.
And then you're talking about? Yeah. How's your
tax
filing? U.
Love for extension.
It's so true.
So those are the 6 foundational skills.
Amazing. Thank you for repeating those. I do
want you to dig into the advanced skills
a little bit, but the thought has come
to me. And so I wanna ask you
now while I'm thinking of it, and I
have a no idea. Remind you about advanced
skills. But
1 of the trigger words that we hear
a lot from parents and it's a trigger
word for us both personally and as at
therapist is when the pair comes in, and
my skin is lazy.
And so the word lazy is a huge
trigger word for us. It's always a signal
us that we should be getting curious instead
of getting punitive.
But what is your response to me sort
of bringing that up. It's funny. Man I
I've often said if there's... If I could
out outline 1 word and then you're find
what you would be lazy. So I am
mh. Completely board for that.
Many years ago, I was asked to develop
a keynote, which I called Beyond Lazy and
un motivated, and basically said. Yeah. When you're
using those terms, what do... In fact, I
have a whole set of terms
I might be able to quickly find them.
It's the part of my workshops that people
take pictures of
fat this minute
the no no works? Yeah. Exactly. And it's
so that is. Let me find.
I just think this is really helpful to
think about.
So
instead of calling students this lazy un motivated
not working to potential disruptive
opposition messy Tar for Forgetful. Absent minded, we're
lacking a work ethic. Mh. How about we
describe them as having challenges in task
initiation so sustained attention, response inhibition, and I
go through. I mean I'll send you that
slide if you wanna see it because... I'm
very visual. That would be amazing.
Yeah. Yeah. Because
again, people really resonate to that. In every
single 1 of those words, the negative words,
first of all has a corresponding executive skill
on the right hand side but there are
all terms that I have heard from parents
or teachers of both. It's so damaging though
Yeah. It just sticks with you. Yeah. Even
into a delta, it becomes part of your
identity that was put upon you by somebody
else. There's always more because we fundamentally believe
that when kids can, they will,
and kids want to please the adults in
their life. And when they're not, we have
to figure out why and we have to
help them, not punish them for it.
Because they wanna please the adults. Right. Exactly.
And as I say this is my workshops
all the time. So if you're a parent
and you're hearing a teacher just describe your
kid is lazy or if you're a teacher,
and you're hearing a parent describe their kid
is lazy. What I suggest you is gently
say to them, you know what?
I prefer to think of as having problems
with task initiation and sustained attention, and we
need to come up with some strategies to
help with that. And so shift the
conversation away from negative terms because the nice
thing about executive skill terminology is it needs
you to problem solving. It leads you to...
Okay. So what do we do about that?
Yeah.
How do we help? That's the end all.
What's the intervention for lazy?
Interventions for task initiation, sustained attention etcetera. And
you're right. I have numerous stories, including within
my own family. Of,
people who... By the time they reached adulthood,
they were thinking of themselves as lazy. And
Yeah. That was their default. Oh, I'm having
trouble with that because I'm lazy. Come lazy.
Done that way forever.
So... Yeah. Yeah, it's so sad. Thank you
for addressing that because we couldn't be more
aligned on that. And
let's go back now to the
advanced
executive skills if you don't mind. Again, I
think we still
model those skills with younger kids, you know,
In fact, here's my recommendation. We teach kids
that vocabulary too. That's why that second grade
was trying to figure how do I tell
second graders about executive skills? Because she thought
if she could get that terminology in kids.
So for instance, you know, a second grade
teacher might say to her class, You know
organization is a really important skill. You're gonna
need it for the rest of your life.
So tell you what, we're gonna end the
day 5 minutes early, and we're gonna spend
the last 5 minutes a day tidying up
our desks, making sure everything is in its
place.
So that when you come in from school
tomorrow, you will be ready to learn. That's
called organization. That's an executive skill, and you're
always gonna need it. And at the secondary
level, I wish when teachers are assigning long
term project They would say to the class.
You know what? Here's why I'm assigning this
long term project. I want you to learn
some research skills and I want you to
learn some writing skills and I want you
to learn the information that you're researching. Mh
not there are 2 really important executive skills
that go along with this that are just
as important for you to be practicing.
1 is planning
and the other is time management.
And so if we could just have teachers
whenever it comes up in the classroom, elected
kids know, here's the executive skill or skills
that you need to do this task.
Then I think that's the way to handle
it. Let's think about planning for a minute
because what I find with planning is that...
I mean, when I think of planning, I
immediately think of long term projects,
And I decided many years ago. There's a
mismatch between what great teachers start assigning long
term projects and when we can expect kids
to independently plan them.
Mh.
So what teachers do is totally developmental appropriate.
They do the planning 4 kids. You know,
they break on the project into sub some
timelines and interim deadlines, and the shepherd kids
through the project again. Okay. By tomorrow. I
want you to have 5 note cards showing
me the notes you're taking for that project
or whatever.
And again, that's developmental appropriate, but it fails
to take the advantage of the opportunity to
teach planning.
So I'm always saying to teachers, you know,
rather than do the planning 4 kids. How
about you do the planning with kids so
that they see... You're thinking. Yeah. Exactly. And
I think, especially with those advanced skills, so
many of them, the way to help kids
understand them is through think aloud. And and
a therapist can do this. So I'm gonna
think through how I'm gonna manage my homework
tonight. I'm gonna think about what I have
to do, I'm gonna take each task. I'm
gonna figure out how long it's gonna take
me to do it. I'm gonna figure out
when I'm gonna start it. I'm mean gonna
figure out where I'm gonna work. And so
we're modeling that again, that's time management that's
planning, that's task
initiation,
into some extent all of this feeds into
gold directed persistence because at any anytime you're
making a plan and you're committed to following
through on it. Then you're you're working towards
a goal. I love it so much those
are all the things that I just love.
That's why we do what doing right. Yeah.
It just makes me happy.
So
before we sort of wrap up and continue
our conversation on Patreon. What we wanted to
ask is, you know, you have an audience
in front of you now with sm used
audience.
What's the bottom line? What do you wish
at therapist, learning specialist, teachers, parents knew?
Okay. So it is not so much knowing
is understanding.
Want them to understand that there are skills
that lie beneath what we're asking kids to
do in school.
I've called them the hidden curriculum for years.
And I'd say that in part because
If you look at any
local state or national curriculum standards and look
for explicit references to executives skills you won't
find any.
And so if they're not there, then no
one's charged for teaching them? And yet, if
you look at those standards and think what
skills do I need to practice reading comprehension.
A lot of it is executive skills. And
so Mh. I think if I could get
in
my husband and kisses me and said about
win or a hammer, everything looks like a
nail.
If you kids behavior
through an executive skill lens, what executive skill
strengths does that kid bring to the table,
what are they challenged by the tasks we're
asking kids to do through an executive skill
lens and then say, is there a mismatch?
Is there a mismatch between the skills we
affect this kid to have in terms of
executive skills and the ones they actually have,
and how can we get from
where they are now to where we want
them to be?
I love it. You too. Thank you. Thank
you for being here, and thank you for
sharing with our audience. This has been a
real treat for us. I have such a
girl crash right now. And the mind saying
it.
If you wanna hear more about our conversation
with Peg Dawson, and we're gonna be heading
on over to Patreon. I have a couple
things that I wanna talk to you about
in terms of... So how Covid is impacted,
what you have seen in terms of executive
skills. And then I'm also interested in what
sort of shift you went through as a
parent. And how it informs to the work
that you do because now I have the
baby. And I'm soaking in all the knowledge.
So... Yeah. Yeah. Peg, would you be willing
to do our signature sign off. Yeah. Sure.
Have a great week. Smart.
Yay.
Have a great week.