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Executive functioning skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus our attention, and remember step by step instructions. The term is recurrent in the psychologist community and is often mentioned at in the results when any assessment is completed for your child. It is essentially broken down into 8 different categories:

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1. Planning 

2. Prioritization

3. Organization (both physical and time management)

4. Task Initiation

5. Self-Monitoring

6. Adaptability 

7. Impulse Control

8. Emotional Regulation

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From an academic point of view, these skills are the framework for all studying efficiency, test-taking strategies, project management, and high-level focus in school and out. In a sentence, people who have well developed EF skills are SUPER-learners. 

 

Executive Function Coaching not only helps identify and target what the child is struggling with, but it also teaches self-advocacy, independence, and confidence along the way. 

 

In practice, the mindset of younger individuals requires short term results as well as long-term brain training. Elements has found it most effective if EF skills are infused into academic tutoring as a strategy to model the application of what these important skills look like in the real world and in real school.

 

This way, student engagement is dramatically increased, which triggers memory retention for longer periods. This allows the habit time to form and grow. Learners (young and old) often think in terms of "right now" problems, so they need initially to learn "right now" solutions; however, infusing in "forever" learning strategies creates the self-sufficient Super-learner.