What is Executive Functioning? Or, more appropriately, What are Executive Functioning Skills?

Executive Functioning (EF), generally speaking, is the ability to create a plan and execute that plan from start to finish.

As a result, Executive Functioning skills pertain to those skills within the brain that allow a person to create a plan and carry it out from start to finish. These executive functioning skills are developed and derive from the prefrontal cortex (the very front part of the brain). With ADHD and other EF disorders, the brain’s ability to use the skills found within this prefrontal cortex are hampered and, with ADHD specifically, deficits associated with hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention become apparent.

While the list of executive functioning skills within the brain can be as short as 5-8 skills or as long as 45-50 skills, a middle-of-the-road list includes 11 basic executive functioning skills (taken from Peg Dawson and Richard Guare’s work Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, Third Edition, copyright 2018, The Guilford Press). These include:

1) Response Inhibition

2) Working Memory

3) Emotional Control

4) Task Initiation

5) Sustained Attention

6) Planning/Prioritization

7) Flexibility

8) Organization

9) Time Management

10) Goal-Directed Persistence

11) Metacognition

Other lists might also include stress-tolerance. The most important note to remember is that everyone, yes EVERYONE, has both executive functioning strengths and executive functioning weaknesses. It is important to know your strengths and your weakness, so you can determine how to use your strengths to bolster your weaknesses, and so. you can establish social supports when necessary. The key here is to know yourself and be merciful toward yourself and toward others.