Executive Function and Dysfunction

All students must juggle learning new skills while managing increasing responsibilities at each stage of their education. These adjustments are pronounced as students shift to 1st grade, 6th grade, 9th grade, and college. Smaller shifts may occur throughout every year, month, and day. Additionally, students must simultaneously navigate ever-changing internal and external circumstances.

Students’ brains are constantly developing during each of these transitions. Executive function skills are housed in the pre-frontal cortex, which is the final area of the brain to develop, as late as age 25. Our developmental trajectory does not always line up with the increase in expectations and responsibilities, resulting in students becoming stuck.

This may result in challenges in any one, or more, of the following areas: