Developing Strategies for Carrying Over Executive Functioning Skills from School to Home Environment
In the realm of education and therapy, a crucial aspect for neurodivergent learners is the generalization of executive functioning (EF) skills. Generalization refers to the ability to perform a task or display a behaviour across settings, with different people, and at different times. This ability is thought to have evolved in humans to help us apply prior knowledge more effectively.
To successfully promote generalization of EF skills, a multifaceted and integrated approach is essential. Here are six evidence-based strategies that can help:
1. **Embed EF Skill Practice Across Settings:** Skills should be practiced and reinforced not only in therapy or coaching sessions but also at home, in school, and in other natural environments. This helps learners apply executive skills in varying real-world contexts, supporting generalization.
2. **Use Coaching and Personalized Supports:** Personalized executive function coaching tailored to individual strengths and needs helps learners set goals, prioritize, and develop actionable plans to build EF skills. Coaching for neurodivergent learners often includes flexible, practical strategies to enhance organization, time management, and emotional regulation across life domains.
3. **Foster Co-Regulation and Soft Supports:** Adaptive systems that provide *soft cognitive companionship* rather than rigid commands raise awareness of attention or fatigue and gently nudge learners back to tasks. These emotionally safe "nudges" allow learners to maintain autonomy while building self-monitoring and task re-entry skills.
4. **Employ Neurofeedback and Brain-Based Interventions:** Approaches like neurofeedback therapy aim to retrain brainwave patterns associated with attention and self-regulation, potentially resulting in lasting improvements in executive functioning. Unlike medication, which offers only temporary symptom control, neurofeedback can support enduring skill development.
5. **Focus on Emotion and Motivation:** Strategies such as dopamine-aligned micro-interventions can re-engage motivation and reduce fatigue, important for sustaining effort in executive tasks. Emotional and motivational supports are crucial for neurodivergent learners to generalize EF skills effectively.
6. **Promote Social Emotional Skills in Parallel:** Since executive functioning interacts with social-emotional abilities like working memory and self-control, nurturing these skills simultaneously can help generalization, especially in naturalistic social environments.
It's important to note that there are two primary types of generalization relevant to working with neurodivergent individuals: response generalization and stimulus generalization. Response generalization refers to demonstrating different behaviours in the presence of similar environmental stimuli, while stimulus generalization refers to demonstrating similar behaviours in the presence of different environmental conditions.
To make promoting generalization more effective, it's crucial to have a plan for each step before starting to teach. This includes varying instructions and settings, asking the learner about new scenarios, using materials that learners can use anywhere, and recording data to track progress over time.
Failure to demonstrate stimulus generalization tends to be the most common issue when transferring EF skills from one environment to another. It's important to watch for patterns when generalization fails and to create an individualized plan to support each learner where they struggle.
Celebrating generalization along the way can help reinforce the behaviour and increase its likelihood over time. Setting goals that include generalization can help embed it into the mastery criteria for coaching goals, workplace objectives, or IEP goals.
For additional resources and tools, consider The Real Life Executive Functioning Workbook, How to Embedding EF skills into Classroom Routines, Executive Functioning IEP Goal Resource Hub, and Executive Functioning Coaching programs. Contriving opportunities, including difficult ones, can help expose learners to enough practice opportunities for skills to generalize. The "Train and Hope" method, which teaches new skills in hopes that they will generalize later, is not effective.
In conclusion, promoting generalization of executive functioning skills in neurodivergent learners requires a thoughtful, multi-faceted, and contextually integrated approach. By implementing these strategies, we can help learners transfer and maintain EF skills beyond structured interventions into daily life.
Life skills and personal growth can be developed through education-and-self-development by utilizing strategies like embedding EF skill practice across settings, employing neurofeedback and brain-based interventions, and promoting social emotional skills in parallel. Furthermore, learning new executive functioning skills requires exposure to various practice opportunities for them to generalize effectively, rather than relying on the "Train and Hope" method.
