Executive Function Coaching

Executive Function Skills

The term executive function encompasses a number of skills that, for the most part, reside in the frontal lobes of the brain, more specifically in the prefrontal cortex. Significant discrepancies remain both within and across fields as to what exactly constitutes executive function skills. Neuropsychologists, psychologists, and educators lack consensus about which skills merit the label executive function and how those skills interface with one another.

While the science behind executive function coaching is based on neuroanatomical principles of brain plasticity, coaching itself is rooted firmly in functional processes. These executive function skills include self-regulation and inhibitory control; task initiation and sustained attention; organization, prioritizing, planning, and time management; working memory and processing speed; and cognitive flexibility and self-monitoring, or metacognition. For students, mastery of these skills allows them to manage time, materials, attention, effort, emotions, and mindset in order to become more effective learners.

Purpose of Executive Function Coaching

The primary purpose of an executive function coach is to improve the efficacy of clients so they can achieve personally relevant goals with an increasing degree of independence. For students struggling to manage their academic demands, executive function coaching both overlaps with and extends beyond the better known field of tutoring. Tutoring helps a student succeed with a particular assignment (doing well on an upcoming math test) or course (understanding the major concepts in a political science class). Although an executive function coach can work with a student within the same context of a math test or political science class, the goal is to teach habits and develop insights that fundamentally change the way a student approaches her work. In this process, the student grows more capable of and confident about her abilities to tackle new challenges that rely on similar skills. Clients learn tools and gain insights that develop the capacity of executive skills, so they can manage themselves effectively in the context of their current life situations and their ambitions for the future.

Process of Executive Function Coaching

Executive function coaches employ insights from the fields of psychology, neuropsychology, education, and business productivity to help clients become more effective. The first job of the coach is to develop a partnership with the client through specific relationship-building approaches. The particular approaches vary based on the readiness of the client to accept support and to make changes in his life, but all show a respect for the developmental phase of the client and an appreciation for the mental and emotional state of the client. For example, a more resistant client will need a more nurturing approach where the coach is empathic and patient, whereas a client who is ready to make a change will need encouragement [Page 599]to experiment with new tools and strategies and reminders to reflect.

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