What is Executive Function?

Executive function is the cognitive function that enables individuals to plan and organize activities, sustain attention, and persist and complete tasks. These skills are critical not just for school success, but also needed to manage everyday living. Often, people have used the metaphor that executive function is like traffic control where one has to remember, plan, direct, manage, regulate, and act. In other words, we use these skills to help us regulate our behavior.

Common Executive Function Challenges

  • Forgetting to turn in completed assignments
  • Feeling easily overwhelmed with school work
  • Ineffective study skills and learning strategies
  • Having trouble starting projects, multi-step work, or writing assignments
  • Believing there is more time to complete assignments than actual deadlines
  • Trouble balancing academics with personal commitments

Benefits of Coaching

Coaching is a continuous and collaborative process that encourages the individual to make his/her own decisions and choices.

  • Increase autonomy and independence
  • Learn to set personal-driven goals
  • Development of study strategies
  • Move away from parental reliance
  • Establish and develop an individual identity
  • Understand the relationship between daily behaviors and long-term goals

Coaching Structure

We use a holistic approach to building executive function capacity to help students develop life skills and not just homework skills. Coaches help students not only develop routines and schedules, but also learn strategies to manage time, priorities, organization, and reaching goals. We help students develop actions to meet short-term goals and steps to achieve long-term growth in academic and life skills.

Our coaches work on improving the performance and wellbeing of an individual through goal-setting, exploring values, and creating an actionable plan. Coaching focuses on performance improvement, visioning, the present, and moving into the future. It is, however, not about resolving emotional issues or dealing with personal healing and trauma recovery.

How Coaching Works

A short video to learn how the coaching approach can help.