Executive functions in children (allistic or autistic)
Working memory
Working memory continuously manages a flow of information in the brain and distributes its storage across specific areas. It determines what is useful now, what may be useful later and what can be discarded immediately. It also develops internal “algorithms” synthesising several pieces of data, and ensures that long-term memories are accessible at the appropriate moment. Thanks to it, we can perform complex tasks, follow them step by step and draw on remembered past experiences. It also helps us monitor our own behaviour and consider every possible solution before choosing one.
When working memory performs poorly, difficulties are often observed in other areas: concentration, sustaining attention, insufficient inhibition or an inability to devise a plan. It is not always easy to determine the exact cause of the problem.
Executive functions according to Céline Alvarez
Céline Alvarez, a researcher in neuroscience applied to education, groups executive functions (EF) into three main areas:
● Inhibitory control (or self-control) encompasses personal discipline, managing distractions, the ability to wait your turn to speak or act, emotional control and perseverance.
● Cognitive flexibility encompasses creativity and allows you to reorganise your ideas in response to new information, change strategy when an approach does not work and identify your mistakes.
● Training working memory corresponds to the ability to maintain coherent reasoning.
More concretely, working memory helps us retain instructions, structure our ideas and remember the meaning of words we have just read.
Why are executive functions essential? Even before tackling academic learning (reading, writing, counting), acquiring and strengthening executive functions is paramount. The period from 3 to 5 years—corresponding to nursery school in France—is particularly critical: during these years, a “window of opportunity” exists for learning self-control, attention and the conscious memorisation of information. Source: Céline Alvarez.
The role of parents As parents, we can offer children, whether allistic or autistic, the experiences and activities needed to develop these skills at home.
Key executive functions for autistic children
1. Inhibition (self-discipline)
2. Planning
○ Developing a plan
○ Organising time and activities
○ Planning ahead
3. Mental flexibility
○ Adapting to new circumstances
○ Avoiding rigidity and developing flexibility of mind
List of executive functions (EF)
● Selective attention: focusing on relevant information and not allowing yourself to be distracted. Concentrating on one element and ignoring the rest.
● Inhibition (thinking before acting): the ability to think before acting, to resist impulses.
● Working memory: retaining and manipulating information in memory while performing complex tasks.
● Emotional self-regulation: managing your emotions to reach your goals, complete a task or control your behaviour.
● Sustained attention: staying focused despite distractions, fatigue or boredom.
● Task initiation: starting a project without procrastination, in good time and effectively.
● Planning and prioritisation: defining the steps to reach a goal, deciding what is important and what is less so.
● Organisation: structuring or classifying elements according to a coherent system.
● Time management: estimating the duration of activities, allocating your time and meeting deadlines.
● Perseverance: maintaining your efforts until a goal is reached, without being discouraged by competing needs or interests.
● Cognitive flexibility: adapting your plans in the face of an obstacle, an unexpected result or new information.
● Metacognition: stepping back to observe the situation and your own functioning, assessing yourself and adjusting your strategy.
When are executive functions required?
Don Norman and Tim Shallice identified five types of situation in which the automatic activation of habits is insufficient and executive functions are indispensable:
1. Planning and decision-making
2. Adjusting behaviour and correcting errors
3. Learning new patterns of action
4. Dangerous or technically difficult contexts
5. Breaking deeply rooted habits
Sometimes action stops because the EF needed to solve a problem are lacking. A person who is “well supported” masters their executive functions, while someone who lacks them regularly experiences painful moments, undermines their self-confidence, generates stress and anxiety, and may slide into depression.
Allistic vs AS: identity
For an AS person, identity rests exclusively on their performance and abilities in the moment. Disorders present a major disability: like a brilliant actor on stage suddenly stopped by a memory lapse, the AS person can become paralysed and have an anxiety attack. ‘The AS person exists through their talents and passions, without projecting themselves into a better “tomorrow”; everything can collapse in a moment of weakness.’
Conversely, an allistic person rarely sees their identity destroyed by a moment of doubt: they have automatic resources and good memories to draw on, even when faced with a temporary inability. The AS person, meanwhile, can suffer from these erasures and this insecurity for a long time.
‘Believe me, executive functions are the key to a better life for AS people.’
Teaching executive functions
Parents and educators have an essential role: the earlier executive functions (EF) are taught, the better. Between the ages of 3 and 5 is ideal; afterwards, it is harder, but still possible. Passion provides the energy to develop each executive function, one after another. Positive will — that is, the ability to sustain motivation — remains the most important EF to cultivate throughout life.
An experiment in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands, the ROC led by Silvester van Dooremaalen is testing a system in which EF replace grades as the assessment criterion. The idea is to create an egalitarianism that compensates for disabilities and values the ability to function socially and professionally, regardless of qualifications.
From disability to ‘handicap’
Today, our values rest on qualifications, concealing some people's inability to carry out a task or a job. With the appropriate EF, a person can excel in a field without being the most highly qualified. Just as in golf, where a handicap measures the difference between an ideal score and the actual result, we can assess the EF needed to accomplish a task without a ‘handicap’. This makes it possible to rebalance skills.
Finally, let us remember that AS children, gifted children and those who have experienced early trauma more often have executive difficulties: understanding and supporting them better is essential.
Executive functions play a decisive role in academic success, sometimes even more than intelligence. They enable behaviour firmly directed towards a goal. You may be brilliant, but if you let yourself be distracted by every external stimulus (noises, movement in the classroom) or internal one (thinking about something else), learning becomes much harder for the AS person.
These functions are even more indispensable in new situations. Yet school is a place where we constantly encounter new knowledge: your executive functions are therefore crucial there. As Horeweg (2021) points out, establishing routines within the school environment eases the demands on them and better supports learning.