The latest thinking about brain development suggests these skills blossom later during the teen years when brain cells and cell networks grow and are pruned for efficiency. So, are any of these skills lacking in your teen? Probably. Memory: Utilizing working memory and accessing recall.Īction: Monitoring and self-regulating action. “Even great ones are not likely to produce a very good symphony if they don’t have a someone to coordinate and integrate the musicians,” he says.Īnd, he says, the executive function maestro ideally coordinates brain activity to produce these results:Īctivation: Organizing, prioritizing, and activating to work.įocus: Focusing, sustaining, and shifting attention to tasks.Įffort: Regulating alertness, sustaining effort, and processing speed.Įmotion: Managing frustration and regulating emotions. ADHD might be the extreme end of the impairments in executive function.” What is EFīrown compares executive function to the conductor of an orchestra.
Everyone experiences a low mood from time-to-time, but only those significantly impaired over longer periods are diagnosed as depressed. “It’s not all-or-nothing, like pregnancy, where one either is pregnant or not,” says Thomas Brown, the professor heading Yale’s noted Clinic for Attention and Related Disorders and one of the top experts on ADHD and executive function. You might hear they lack “executive function,” a phrase buzzing around education and teen development circles. While a few students in each school classroom probably have a serious attention disability and need special care, more than half might have trouble getting motivated, organized or focused. So what’s going on in their brains? Is it ADD/ADHD (attention deficit disorder sometimes with hyperactivity), or just normal teen development? And what can parents do to help? And there is no sign of urgency or, sometimes, any concern at all. Just when your child seems to be doing great, boom! There’s that math test that seems to come out of nowhere or that history paper that was never finished. It’s exasperating to parents and teachers: Why can’t teenage kids keep themselves organized, focused or motivated?
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