help with research on developing executive function skills

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Parents out there --

I'm sure that many of us are going through the same thing.

I'm looking for any articles or books, or even just advie, on how to develop executive functioning skills in my (11 year old) son.

It would appear that I have been kidding myself into thinking he was doing better than he really is at school. I am now very concerned for his welfare when he begins middle school next year, as well as for the rest of his life. He has problems with (and I'm sure many of you parents can relate to this):

beginning and sticking with homework
decision making skills (deciding what subject to do for a report)
organization
note-taking
deciding what's important to study, vs. what's not important to study

From my very cursory research so far, I see nothing that has been done in this area specifically. But I read plenty about people with Asperger's who are miserable at school and in life as a result of these problems.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Kris

My 12 year old has no executive functioning skills either, and from what I have been told, what I am doing now is very common with aspie children, you need to become their executive secretary until they can start taking over these things and incorporating them into their "routines".

My son would be flunking out of school if it where not for me keeping on top of his notebooks and reminding him to do homework alone! (Let alone all the letters and visits I have to the school! to duke it out over expectations! )

With the notebook, he has a system, that he was a part of developing. It goes like this:
His class uses duo tangs for each subject, (and a couple also have notebooks for note taking). They also all have a 3 ring zipper binder.
Most of the class brings home the right duo and notebook for the right subject if they have homework, plus text if they need it etc. They also have an agenda to write notes in, track homework. The zipper binder helps them transport stuff around, class to class, from school to home.

My son was dying with managing all the books, so this is what we did:
1.) Got copies of texts that the school could spare, so he does not have to worry about transporting those. This was important too because he sometimes does math as much as 2 grade levels below, so in having the math text at home, he does not have to be broadcasting this to the classroom!

2.) He brings home all of his duo tangs every night. They fit in the zipper binder, but this way he is prepared no matter what subject he is working on, and he no longer "forgets". I also can review the duo tangs daily to see his progress (we are micro managing right now) and I help keep him organized, as he is poor at transferring work to the duo tangs.

3.) When the class gets a photocopy, they are supposed to immediately put it in the duo tang so it does not get lost. My son REFUSED to do this, I think he finds it hard to write with the page in the duo tang. So, he and I decided to keep unfinished work out of the duo tang, he just puts it into a pocket or the middle part of the zipper binder. When work is completed, he moves them over to the duo tang as that is where it ultimately needs to go to get graded. He is under strict rules that NOTHING is to be left or shoved into his desk in the first place. It took awhile to get things in the binder at all, a lot of nights of "I left it in my desk" and asking him "where is this supposed to go?" but now he has it pretty solidly.

This is where my help comes in. If left on his own he would not have anything where it is supposed to be, doing things properly would still be very sporadic. So, I have to look it over and either move papers around myself, or get on him and ask in a pleasant enough way "can we put papers where they need to go now?" or when he finishes each assignment ask "Can we put that in the duo now?" In the beginning, it was me doing everything almost always, but now that he sees order and that it is not difficult to do, he is doing about 50% of the work, I find more papers where they are supposed to be all the time!

With me, it is like this, if you are teaching a very small child how to print, you often use "hand over hand" instructions. Simply "showing them" and walking away is not going to get them to write the said letter, they actually have to be physically "shown" how to draw the letter with your hand over theirs. If you did not do this and just "showed" it to them, and they did it wrong, and you came back and "showed" them again, and then again and again, a lot of children would not learn the hand movement, unable to transfer what you are doing to their own hand and own paper. I think of executive function with my son in the same way, he needs a much more aggressive and physical display of how to do things, and not be allowed to fall too far a stray. When things get too messy, it overwhelms him, and he is lost in how to correct it, worse he suffers academically. But in being led by me to do things "right" he is learning the proper way and is taking over more and more of the organizational work all the time because he does WANT to do it, just does not know how! Just like how a 4 year old WANTS to print nicely, and is capable of learning, they just need to be shown how too!

Now with my son, we tried to get him to do things just like his classmates, papers straight into duos, recording in his agenda, it did not work. We made a list for him to remind himself to do things, it did not work, he resisted it something fierce. What worked, was identifying some of his biggest issues (can't stand working on something IN a duo tang) and coupled that with something he could do (shove papers loosely into the binder). I asked him "Honey, do you think you could manage to at a minimum, get your papers INTO the binder, I don't care where they are in it!" And he thought about it and said "yes, I can do that much". And so our system was born! I think that is important too, your child needs to give input into the process or it won't work for them!

Now my son is regularly bringing home homework, turning in completed assignments, and has the notes he needs to study for tests! In the end, it takes me maybe 5 minutes a day!

Ok, like you have not heard enough from me!

Lets tackle "note taking" and studying and decision making!

The first thing that needs to be determined, is why is he failing at this? Keep in mind that taking notes IS DIFFICULT for many children, aspie, nt, ld, adhd, children in general have a hard time learning good note taking skills.

What style of notes is your son supposed to be taking? Is this straight copying? Or is he supposed to be recording only key points? At 11 I would think it is straight copying, if it is key points, his executive functioning skills are just not at that level! You are going to need to IEP notes probably no matter what, but especially if it is key point note taking!

Is your son distracted in the process of listening, writing, and even just having to look constantly from black board to paper, teacher to paper? I actually have an LD that makes it difficult for me to look at vertical written information! Also how are his overall writing skills? Is he struggling with spelling / reading / physically writing?

With my son, (12) he has an impossible time with spelling and physically writing, (poor fine motor skills) You add on a good case of distractibility, and he is lost for taking notes! He has a hard enough time just listening and following a class lecture let alone having to take notes!

Over the year, he did get good at writing everything down, but this came at a huge cost, he could not listen or follow what was being said anymore, worse his writing was so bad he could not use what was written! Even he did not know what he wrote! So, I have now demanded that he does NOT write notes. He just listens, and the teacher either provides him with a copy of notes to follow with, or gets a copy from another student for him! At home, I then take the notes he was provided with and we discuss the content of the notes. Often we put it into a computer program called "inspirations" (www.inspirations.com) which is mapping software so that he can see all the relationships and interconnections in the given assignment! This helps solidify the information in his head, and gives him a head start with any "studying" he needs to do later! I usually type it out while we discuss it, and then he has to "beautify" the map, add pictures to help him remember things, etc. I am not sure If I told you about this problem specifically before or not, but it is FABULOUS as a study / organizational tool. Some people even use it to organize their day! the Website has a free 30 day trial, if you like it, it is not very expensive to buy outright, the school may even purchase it for you!

Since we review all his notes every night, we discuss what the key points are in any subject, and using inspirations, use them as study lists for the future! It may sound like a lot of work, but it is fun and usually does not amount to more then a 1/2 hour a day since we got all caught up and are familiar with what we are doing! It saves a lot of grief down the road too!

Another thing I have for him, is I get a clear outline before the teacher starts a math unit on what the expectations are for him by the end of it all, so when we are studying, we know what is important and what is not! In all subjects I now get an outline of the key points for the unit, basically a "study sheet", not all the notes again, but an understanding of what he needs to review. Since we had been keeping track of assignments and notes on a daily basis, his retention is very high and it does not take a lot of time to study for a test!


So, I think that is about it, he does not need to decide what to study, those are joint decisions made between my son and I much earlier on, and his teacher provides clarification right before the test! His marks have skyrocketed with these methods, he has gone from failing to easily pulling of a "b" even some "A's"!

With decision making relating to deciding what to do for a report, this is what I do with my son, I use the program inspirations again, and we sit down. He gives his "ideas" on what he "might" like to do, and write down three large bubbles, one for each subject. He then lists off the pros and cons for each idea, maybe what he knows about them, what he likes about each idea, how easy does he think it will be to find information. Very quickly he will develop a favourite in most cases, it will become obvious he is more interested in one, or one will be easier, or one is much more difficult. If he struggles with the decision, I will make suggestions, based on what I see in observing him and his input onto the chart. Usually I will see his eyes light up with one of the topics, or I will see that he was able to throw ideas out much faster for one of them, or I just inherantly know the way a mother does, that one is more suited for him and I will "suggest" he follow that idea and give my reasons why.
The great thing is, he is actually making decisions on his own better and better all the time! I think he is "thinking is options through" in his head much this way and making good decisions for himself.

Anyway, I didn't have a book to suggest, but I appear to have written you one! Sorry it was so long!

EarthCalling:

You are helping me out once again! Yes, you did previously suggest the "inspirations" program, and I did check it out -- briefly -- and will do so again in more depth. Probably will order it if I can.

As for note-taking, my son is great in spelling and pretty good with his fine motor skills, so that just leaves pure attention and distraction problems. I was thinking of trying a note-taking skill kind of like "info-mapping", where you write things in bubbles all over the page, rather than in linear fashion. It sounds crazier than it really is. It's just a way to get information closer to the original thought, rather than having to go back and forth in a linear way. You can write the original thought in one part of the page, and then write extensions of relating thoughts off of that initial bubble. I was going to try teaching him this by watching videos on subjects he finds interesting (i.e. animals, chemistry, etc.) watching WITH him, and taking notes WITH him, and comparing notes. I figure doing daily throughout the summer might help. The school will offer the notes for each class, but I don't know if I want him relying on that and never learning the skill himself.

I'll write more later. Thanks SO MUCH for your ideas and response!

Kris

EarthCalling:

I really looked at the website long and hard this time. I think I must have been having trouble getting on the website because the Inspirations program has a web address of www.inspiration.com, and not www.inspirations.com. I was typing in the latter, and not getting the software program website. I figured out my error, and so now I've seen all their mini-videos about the product.

That software is cool! It really has potential for helping with reports, and giving ideas of how to take notes even (the info-mapping technique). I definitely will be buying that -- and I will download the temporary version too, just to see what my son could do with it. Exactly how does your son use the software? In which classes?

Kris

Oh how does he use it?

More ways then you can count!

He will have a laptop next year (knock on wood) and will have the program on it. It has templates that you can use, or create your own map or diagram. My aunt says that the special ed kids in her district use it as their daily agenda to organize their days! (It has a template for that). It has ven diagrams, mind maps, outlines, all sorts of really cool stuff!

We will take a note, like the one he had to do on music, it starts with a symphony orchestra, we use that as the main point. Then using a mind map technicque, and pressing the lightning bolt, you can throw out some related things, like what it is, who is in it, what instruments they use, where do you hear this kind of music. Then you take the points, and using the rapid fire (lightning bolt) you can throw off some offshoots again, so lets just say you take instruments, being strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. Now you take each instrument and make its own off shooting bubble! You drop in pictures for each idea, so you SEE a picture of an ochestra, you see the instruments, etc.

To use your own pictures, you can save any picture to your computer and then upload them to the symbol library, or you can just right click on your picture, say on the internet (yahoo and google both have areas you can search for pictures) press copy, and then past it in where you want it in the program!

He also does assignments on it. In french he will write down all his words for the week and find pictures for them instead of writing the english translation. Therefore he sees a fork, and it says Une fourchette, he will retain "une forchette" better because he is not focusing on the english translation he is more comfortable with.

We use it in science, if makes a lot of flow charts to answer questions. He had to do a diversity assignment, where he would take the animal kingdom for example, and record under the "animal kingdom" bubble "reptiles, amphibians, fish, mammels, birds". Then he would use offshoots to discribe the key charactoristics of each group, and then pictures of examples. You hit the "tree" button and BAM! It is all converted into an easy to follow flow chart that clearly shows the inter relaitonships with pictures! This is a huge help, because not only is it a neat and tidy presentation, it was fun to do, and when he goes to write his tests, he will actually SEE it in his mind to refer to! He will remember his animal choices and how they looked etc!

We use it in english, to map ideas and order paragraphs. You can map your ideas, then write sentances about it looking at your idea, basically just polishing it up. Then we cut and paste it into Word so he can write the assignment, everything in locical order and making sense! The program has a few extra features that as the child gets more savvy with this technique, it will actually outline everything for you, and the child can just cut and paste the inspirations outline into word, the assignment nearly written for them! Of course, it IS THEIR WRITTING! It is not a "cheat". Then just with a few simple edits, the program is done.

I'll see if I can get the University of Toronto demonstration of this program, it was pretty impressive. Otherwise if you get the program, I could email you a few documents to show what my son has done with it!

If your son is at all familiar with the computer program 'paint" it will be a really easy transition for him, as the program works just like paint!

Wow, this sounds pretty cool. I feel like it would be a great thing to get as summer begins, so that he can use it during the summer, and then be proficient with it by the time school starts again in the fall.

I like how you two have found so many different ways of using this program for your son. I just figured, since it's a visual computer program, my son will probably love it, and would be willing to do more work on it. He knows Paint, so this would be an easy transition from that.

Thanks so much!

Kris