The Executive of our Functions

Dr Richard Skelton, Educational Psychologist has had the pleasure in working with Dr Rebecca Ashton, Educational Psychologist specialising in neuropsychology to develop Executive Functions: Connections in Practice - an online course for Educational Psychologists. 

Richard shares his interest and experience of this interesting area of cognition.

Executive functions… makes it sound very grand when you look at the term. The ‘executive’ of what exactly?

As Educational Psychologists, we know what cognitive functions are; those discrete abilities which enable children to achieve on individual tasks. However, I often find myself questioning these simplistic notions because, if this was the case, then two children with the same cognitive profile should theoretically be achieving around the same level – something rarely seen in practice. However, take an ‘executive approach’ to cognition and other functions, then this starts to make a lot more sense.

Executive functions can be partitioned out into different areas, such as ‘hot EF’ (those abilities we use to manage when experiencing heightened emotions) and ‘cool EF’ (those abilities we use to reason and think logically when calm), or can even be broken down into 11 subdomains, including areas such as working memory, response inhibition, flexible thinking, sustained attention etc.

There are other ways to partition EF out too, which is possibly why this is an area I’ve read a lot on, but never had a unified understanding of. I’ve often dabbled with applying each of these concepts separately, much like I would when understanding more about other areas of cognition. In fact, doing so has been incredibly helpful, such as looking at ‘flexibility’ within the context of applying knowledge to novel situations, inferencing, perspective taking, and being adaptable when things change, or ‘response inhibition’ as a way which can impact distractibility, emotional volatility, and making simple mistakes. Each, of course, then has a subsequent impact upon self-concept, confidence and other areas, which can have a cyclical feedback loop; potentially making the child feel more anxious and less flexible / more impulsive.

However, it is the ‘bigger picture’ of executive functioning which is perhaps even more fascinating, helpful, and impactful to understand as an EP. Taking an amalgamated definition of EF as…

“A set of processes and skills necessary to facilitate adaptation to novel situations and achieve a purposeful, goal-directed outcome.”

… this is where the term ‘executive’ really does feel appropriate. It is the higher order ability to execute each of these skills, individually and together to achieve something. There is a really helpful analogy of this which Rebecca talks about in EF: Connecting Into Practice, which is to imagine that each of the cognitive / executive function abilities are like planes trying to land at an airport, and it is Executive Function in it's purest form which is the air traffic control tower that impacts how efficiently and successfully this can happen. Another analogy which is talked about in an interview with Laurie Faith is to imagine each of these cognitive / executive function abilities as instruments in an orchestra. While we can support each musician to play their individual piece, they need a conductor (i.e. the EF control centre) to help each instrument to work together to achieve synchronicity and harmony. When we understand how Executive Functions work within this bigger picture context, it opens up many more possibilities for intervention. Not least, because we also have at the forefront of our minds the many other important physiological and emotional components which impact cognition. When thinking of this, I had in mind how the conductor and their orchestra would perform if they were sleep deprived, anxious because of home problems, extremely uncomfortable in the dress they had to wear, socially nervous in front of the crowd. May they be too slow at times? Freeze and struggle to think / focus on what they’re doing? Get distracted and lose their place? Speed up too fast with one instrument section and lose another? In any of these situations, it wouldn’t matter how good each part of the orchestra was, the outcome would be that the music would lose it’s pace and the orchestra wouldn’t function at it’s fullest capacity.

The ‘EF conductor’ is why two children with the same cognitive profile will likely present very differently too. It is also why, when we understand a child’s executive functioning profile, sometimes it’s most important to prioritise supporting physiological or affective foundations before even starting to consider discrete skills development. With this in mind, perhaps a better term for EF would be ‘the Executive of our functions’, and deserving of such a grand title.

EF: Connecting Into Practice has given me a unified view to see functions and cognitions within the context of the whole child. A framework to inform hypothesis generation, and to prioritise holistic interventions. The strategies within, the ways to consult on EF, and aspects like EF coaching have already positively shaped my practice, and are helping CYP I work with.

Register for the Executive Functions: Connecting into Practice course here.

You can also access 3 key resources from this course for FREE HERE.