Margaret M. Dawson Psychologist, Center for Learning and Attention Disorders, Seacoast Mental Health Center Portsmouth, New Hampshire 

Youngsters with poor executive skills are disorganized or forgetful, have trouble getting started on tasks, get distracted easily, lose papers or assignments, forget to bring home the materials to complete homework, or forget to hand homework in. They may rush through work or dawdle, or make careless mistakes that they fail to catch. They don’t know where to begin on long-term assignments, and they put the assignment off until the last minute in part because they have trouble judging the magnitude of the task and how long it will take to complete it. Their workspaces are disorganized, and teachers may refer to their desks, backpacks, and notebooks as “black holes.” Students with executive skill deficits present tremendous challenges to both parents and teachers who often find themselves frustrated by children whose problems in school seem to have little to do with how smart they are or how easily they learn.
This workshop will outline an approach that links assessment of executive skill challenges to intervention design targeting behaviors impacting school performance and overall cognitive and neurobehavioral health. Relying on a variety of assessment tools, both formal and informal, the presenter will make the case that assessment is most useful when it can lead to practical interventions to address the most pressing problems both at home and at school that arise as a result of executive skill challenges.

After the session, participants will be able to:

1. Identify how executive skills impact school performance and daily living.

2. Describe a variety of formal and informal assessment strategies for evaluating executive skills.

3. Describe how to make environmental modifications to support weak executive skills.

4. Explain how to design protocols for teaching executive skills.

5. Develop a process for designing a “student-centered” intervention targeting problem situations associated with executive skill challenges.

Target Audience: Neuropsychologists and trainees 

Instructional Level: Intermediate

In over 40 years of clinical practice, Dr. Peg Dawson has worked with thousands of children and teens who struggle at home and in school. At the center of their struggles are often weak executive skills. Along with her colleague, Dr. Richard Guare, she has written numerous books on this topic for educators, mental health professionals, and parents, among them Smart but Scattered, Smart but Scattered Teens, Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, and Coaching Students with Executive Skills Deficits. Peg is also a past president of the National Association of School Psychologists, and the International School Psychology Association, and is a recipient of NASP’s Lifetime Achievement Award.