Strategies for Executive Skills Development in Students with Traumatic Brain Injury, Part One

Executive skills refer to the cognitive processes required to plan and organize activities, including task initiation and follow through, planning/organization, working memory, performance monitoring, inhibition of impulses, and self-regulation. Executive skills involve the integration of information across brain regions, particularly the frontal lobes, and therefore any type of significant acquired brain injury is likely to negatively impact executive skills. These skills are at the heart of what is seen as independent problem solving, goal directed persistence, and motivation. Students with executive skill deficits have problems in all these domains, and they 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.