Executive Function Disorder or Laziness.

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Can someone explain to me how Executive Function Disorder as seen in Autism or Attention Deficit Disorder as seen in ADHD, are any different than laziness. I really don't see the difference. This comes from someone who has ASD.

Laziness is a matter of intention and motivation. You don't do stuff because you don't want to.

Executive dysfunction is a matter of obstacles in the way of your intentions. You may intend and want to do things, but it is difficult to get them done because trying to complete the task may be difficult and exhausting (neurologically, anyway). It's no different, ultimately, than needing to sit down because your legs hurt all the time and don't properly support your weight. You can still walk, but it's difficult.

I know I should do some things, I want and intend to do them and I have good motivating reasons to do them, but when I set out to do them it's like someone dropped a weight on my back and pushing against that gets harder and harder and eventually I switch to something that's much easier to do and it is such a relief. I am not lazy, although I needed someone else to point that out to me (I work really hard when I am able to work), but I am not able to work every time I want to work.

Some videos that may help you understand this better:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF1YRE8ff1g[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3VuV5Jvazs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR1IZJXc6d8[/youtube]

Those are ADHD-focused, but it's not as easy to find information on autism-related executive dysfunction.

" Lazy people," to me from what I've seen, are that way due to a reasoned attitude, or are subscribing to an intellectual decision /philosophy of getting by, by letting "George do it." This attitude can be changed.

This other executive problem is with motivation and working memory. It's difficult to do tasks/chores and the reward mechanism is not quite there.

I often feel stranded in a rut of 'now-ness' as it's a strong inertial force to be locked into a singleness of thought or just doing something. To move out of it takes effort.

Last edited by Mdyar on 21 Apr 2012, 4:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If I could remember which of the videos on A9KAM's account addresses working memory, I'd link it as well.

Mdyar, you reminded me of something I came across last year -

Autistic Inertia

Thanks for the videos, I will be sure to watch them.

The longest is about four minutes.

This one explains that ADHD is not a learned behavior or a character flaw, but an inherent part of one's neurological makeup:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQC-Nk5OOfE[/youtube]

Yeah. ^

And it's very serious business. There is a fundamental missing instinct about it all. Speaking from the inattentive variety of ADHD: It deeply affects your learning ability, because you don't know how to learn. You stand there, figuratively motionless in mind, and miss things around you that pertain to something. This creates missing links in the chain of knowledge, hence there isn't a network to bridge something and put it all together.

You have to learn how to learn. This instinct is disrupted.

I get the profound sense that early on, if it was left up to me, as in no prodding or pressure by circumstances or by others', I'd just be idle in one place and stare and observe, missing any desire to want to be a part of it or anything.

After a while you develop a set of artificial commands or prompts to move in and out these zones-- you eventually learn how to learn.

It's a little robotic.

Executive function deficit is an impairment of cognitive capacity, not just an unwillingness. There are 4 main types:

1. PLANNING, ie organising activities to acheive a goal. For example a lazy person can't be bothered to pack their suitcase for holiday. Someone with exective function defecit will have problems with processing the different steps needed and may become so overwealmed that they just don't know where to start, so don't do it.

2. MENTAL FLEXIBILITY, being able to complete a task and then swap to another entirely different one.

3. INHIBITION, suppressing inappropriate behaviour

4. GENERATIVITY, generating new activities and ideas eg thinking up new ideas for meals.

All that was said above and...

A lack of dopamine. Or I have heard in ADHD the dopamine is absorbed far too quickly.

Thanks for posting this, Verdandi. I had been wanting to look at this for a while, but... well, let's just say that it hadn't happened yet. As I am sitting here reading and writing this, I keep thinking that I really should be working on a PowerPoint presentation that's due on Tuesday. I'm interested in the subject, don't mind using PowerPoint, and it still hasn't happened in the 3 weeks I have known about it. I should probably go do that RIGHT NOW!

Yes, I think you better had. Good luck with it.

I'm not sure what this is, but I have a tendancy to keep saying ''oh I'll do it tomorrow''. Like say if I had an assignment to do within 4 weeks, the first week I say ''oh I have plenty of time yet before the deadline, I will do it next week''. The second week I start making excuses and say, ''oh I'm feeling rather stressed this week about different things, I will not be able to complete the assignment properly, I will do it next week some time.'' I've put it off so much that by the third week I forget about it, and have fun browsing around what I want on the internet. Then on the forth week I think, ''oh the time's almost coming, I might aswell just do it on the night before the deadline.'' And that's when I end up doing it.

I'm not sure of this is laziness or executive dysfunction disorder. And it's not only political things I find difficult (like assignments from the jobcentre). It's simple tasks, as simple as cleansing my face with cleansing wipes before I go to bed. I never do it, even though I know I should, I know they're there, and I know it'd only take less than 10 seconds. But bigger tasks like going to the supermarket does not give me any trouble in that respect (the mild Agoraphobia holds me back, that's a different thing, if I wasn't Agoraphobic, I wouldn't have any executive dysfunctioning problems with going to the supermarket, if you know what I mean).

This is the thing that makes my life miserable with Fior. We have a s**t load of things to do, and he has checked out. Overwhelmed, and it falls into my lap to make it happen. People say he is lazy. He isn't. Fior can make time lines and plan into the future much better than me.

But when the rubber has to meet the road, it mostly falls on my shoulders. Cleaning, doing things that have dead lines, to be honest it sucks. Last night he was sobbing because he can't start things and finish them through.

It isn't depression and a lazy person wouldn't give a s**t. Unless a rather large threat is over Fior's head, he dawdles til it's too late.

I can't be his mom, harping on him, and now I only worry about deadlines that personally affect me.

Have no clue how to help him, and guessing this is a major reason why Aspie/NT marriages crash and burn.

Suggestion and tips welcome.

Tawaki

Break jobs down into manageable chunks. If I tell my daughter to tidy her bedroom she won't because she can't. So instead I tell her to pick up all the clothes and tell me when she's done it. Then I tell her to bring down all the plates and cups and tell me when she's done it. Then make the bed and tell me when she's done it. And so on. This approach works for her.

My husband gets a list at the start of the day of the jobs I need him to do, in the order I need him to do them. Otherwise he'd just fanny about being busy but doing nothing. Bigger jobs gets broken down and written out in steps that he can tick off. (He doesn't need the 'come and tell me when it's done' check in).

If, when you really really want to do something and still can't get started, you're probably dealing with executive dysfunction. For example: You're hungry, but you can't figure out how to get yourself food because choosing and making food seems too complex to you; so you sit there for two hours until your hunger overcomes the mental hurdles and you just grab whatever happens to be edible and accessible. Or, you need to do your homework, you care about your grades, and you care about learning the material; but it just looks so complicated that you can't figure out where to start, and the prospect of starting overwhelms you, so you do boring, useless things instead. That's pretty typical.

Other traits of executive dysfunction are inability to organize complex tasks, difficulty switching from one thing to another, difficulty giving up on a strategy that's been shown not to work, and in extreme cases difficulty starting and stopping movements and speech. Perseveration--the tendency to repeat things that should only be done once or twice--is also common. For example, you might repeat a phrase to yourself over and over... This morning I had a mild instance of perseveration while washing my face--I just kept scrubbing my forehead for about a minute, when really I just needed to swipe the washcloth over it once. In extreme cases you can actually need somebody else to break you out of cycles like that.

It helps to break things down into very small pieces. I've found that stimulants also help, whether it's caffeine, Ritalin, or light exercise. (Yeah, exercise is a stimulant--usually, in my case, in the form of pacing, rocking, or another form of stimming; occasionally I clean the house to clear my head too but it's important not to get stuck on cleaning. Hard exercise like jogging is a good way of shutting down your mind, which is good when you're anxious but not so good when you are trying to do homework.)

But I'm lazy sometimes too. When you know you could get started right now, but you just don't want to, that's laziness. Executive dysfunction can masquerade as "Just don't want to", too, so ask yourself whether you don't want to because it seems overwhelming, difficult, exhausting, or hard to start; that's executive dysfunction. If you could but you want to do something more fun instead, that's laziness.

The good thing about it being executive dysfunction rather than laziness is that you can stop beating yourself up over it, and start figuring out how to get around the problem. Don't just give up--it's a solvable issue. Ironically, executive dysfunction makes it easier to give up because it makes it harder to switch strategies and that means you often end up using the old ones over and over and failing over and over... But it helps, once you're aware of that, because you can tell yourself, "Okay, I tried this before, and it didn't work; so I need to try something new now." If you know your own tendencies that's already a step in the right direction.

Last edited by Callista on 15 Apr 2012, 5:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Do you care?
That's the difference, IMO.