Executive Functioning Skills

Aug 25, 2025

What Are They, And What Happens When They’re Not Working?

When you need to go somewhere, who plans the route and starts the car? Who pays attention to other cars on the road, watches the lanes and signs, and makes adjustments as needed to ensure a safe trip? Who stops the car and makes sure it’s in park when you reach your destination? The driver!

Much like the driver of a car, the executive functioning centers in your brain allow you to plan, carry out, and complete tasks on a daily basis. When they’re working well you hardly notice them, but when they are not functioning properly a lot can go wrong. So what are executive functioning skills, and what happens when they’re not working?

What Are Executive Functioning Skills?

Executive functioning skills are the cognitive processes that help you self-regulate and engage in goal-directed behavior. Executive functions take place primarily in the frontal lobe of your brain, which is one of the last areas to fully develop. Executive functioning processes include:

Attention: The ability to attend to a task and resist distractions.
Task Initiation: The ability to start a task independently.
Working Memory: The ability to store and manipulate information for short-term use.
Fluency/Flexibility: The ability to switch between categories, tasks, and rules.
Planning: The ability to identify steps and items needed to complete a task.
Organization: The ability to organize thoughts, information, and materials.
Self-monitoring and regulation: The ability to check and correct work, emotions, and behaviors.

What Happens When Executive Functioning Skills Are Malfunctioning?

Deficits in executive functioning skills can impact many areas of life, from school work to behavior to social relationships and home life. Because executive functioning difficulties are invisible disabilities, the blame for the results of these weaknesses may be placed on the child. Children with executive functioning deficits may be labeled as lazy, disorganized, messy, distracted, forgetful, or non-compliant, when they are truly in need of support for these skills we often take for granted.

Signs of executive functioning deficits include:

Difficulty staying focused or tuning out distractions
Hyperfocus on an activity or topic
Task avoidance or difficulty starting tasks
Difficulty with problem solving or adjusting to changes
Poor time management or sense of time
Difficulty keeping track of assignments and deadlines
Frequently misplacing or losing things
Seemingly not learning from mistakes
Emotional reactions that don’t fit the situation
Off-topic responses during conversations
Difficulty organizing thoughts for speech or written assignments
Not participating in conversations or dominating conversations
Difficulty interpreting the words and actions of others

What To Do if You Think Your Child is Struggling with Executive Functions

At TPP, our team of experts is ready to help! Our occupational therapists are trained to comprehensively evaluate executive functioning skills and create individualized treatment plans to support success in daily tasks. Our speech-language pathology team is equipped to support executive functioning as well, especially for children who would benefit from support in task organization, verbal and written communication, and social communication. Call us today to schedule an evaluation!

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