Supporting Neurodivergent Children with Executive Functions (For Teachers)

This webinar is for Teachers / Teaching Assistants / Teaching Staff.

Following are the kinds of questions we'll tackle in our upcoming webinar, Understanding and Supporting Neurodivergent Children with Executive Functions in the Classroom.

• How do you know if a student is struggling with cognitive overload?
• What does it look like when a pupil “tunes out”?
• And what simple changes can make young neurodivergent people in your classroom feel more organised, able to focus and plan out the tasks they need to do?

These are just some of the most common FAQs we hear from teachers - from identifying the cognitive challenges that overwhelm young people to tried-and-tested classroom strategies.

Further Details

We know that children and young people with ADHD, DCD/Dyspraxia or who are autistic or have another condition that affects their cognition will likely have significant difficulties with executive functions.

• The child or young person may not understand these difficulties and know how to ask for help to start a task.
• They may not be aware their memory works differently from their peers and instead of alerting you to the fact they can’t remember your instructions they show a behavioural or emotional response.
• They may have difficulty when tasks or aspects of a task change and become overwhelmed.
• They may also just not start a task or quickly veer away from the task when there are multiple parts or instructions.

All of these difficulties reflect executive functions. Knowing what different aspects of executive functions are such as working memory and cognitive flexibility is crucial to understanding the child or adolescent’s needs. Strategies to support them come straight from understanding what the set of difficulties are in the first place.

In this webinar, Professor Rhodes will provide an overview of executive functions and describe what the latest research studies are saying about how best to support neurodivergent children and young people with these difficulties.