Contributions by members
Supporting children with SEN – A look at the issues from a bigger lens
Executive Function Skills for Children with SEN
29 to 31 March 2023
Providing learning support to children with learning difficulties would often require some understanding and knowledge on the child’s diagnosis, a good sense of commitment and unwavering dedications. Other than strong emotional and social support, and words of encouragement given to the child, what proves to be more crucial to practitioners in this field is identifying the most appropriate and effective ‘teaching tools’. A practitioner must be very clear with the purpose of each activity and task chosen, the best approach and its impact on learner. How it relates to the skills needs of the learner must be relevant.
Working with children with SEN very often can be challenging and frustrating, as efforts and time spent by practitioners do not necessarily yield the desired learning outcomes within just a short period. It is therefore important that practitioners recognise the different types of learning difficulties and their signs. This way we are able to pinpoint the specific issues and challenges a learner is facing, and plan and implement an intervention programme that is most befitting for the child.
In this regard, an understanding and a definition of Executive Function is relevant to the context of this write-up. Executive Function is a set of skills that have to do with managing one’s resource and oneself, in order to execute a task. We use executive function when we perform such activities as planning, organizing, strategizing and paying attention to and remembering details. A child with executive function deficits will almost certainly have difficulty with planning, organizing and managing time and space in his daily routines. Furthermore, a child with SEN has to self-regulate his mental and physical behaviour, and learning interchangeably between school setting (academic) and home and social environment. This can be overwhelming to learners with special learning needs.
The table below lists the Executive Function skills that a child with EF deficits will likely face in their daily activities.
|
Executive Function skills |
Manifest EF deficits in school and social setting |
|
Working Memory |
difficulty in keeping track of more than one thing at a time e.g. school homework, timetable, sets of instructions poor in remembering promises, places, birthdates of friends |
|
Organisation |
do task not in a proper sequence, misplace files and books, cluttered personal spaces, items are in a mess, not able to find won things |
|
Response Inhibition |
interrupts when someone is talking, fail to take turns, gets distracted, not able to comply to instructions and orders make own rules, do own things – a poor team player, weak communication skills leads to poor relationships, more swayed by friends for non-positive behaviours |
|
Metagognition |
not able to reflect on work done, keep repeating similar error patterns, difficulty in evaluating ideas shared by others |
|
Flexibility |
difficulty in applying taught concepts to differently worded questions not agreeing on perspectives of others, difficulty in responding to social scenarios, and adapting to problems and unpredictable situations |
|
Planning |
challenges in solving multi-step questions and planning for essays difficulty in establishing plans with others and following through with commitments. |
|
Emotional Control |
Emotional outbursts and intense negative feelings when dealing with challenging questions and tasks Prone to emotional outbursts and having disproportionate reactions to triggers |
|
Sustained Attention |
Decreased task stamina and lack of continuous effort in assignments and tasks Difficulty in obtaining appropriate social information in conversations |
|
Task Initiation |
Task aversion, difficulty in starting on assigned work Task procrastination, slow to get started on required tasks |
|
Time Management |
not able to complete school work, fail to organise and keeping track of time, difficulty adhering to deadlines and time limits, procrastination and in prioritising important assignments |
The approach in reaching out to children with SEN is to look at it with a broader lens or see the bigger picture. By integrating neuropsychological understanding of Executive Function into the management of children with special learning needs, we are able to draw up an intervention programme that enables them to access not only academic but, just as important, social requirements. This is a collaborative approach, which requires the support of parents, practitioners, school administrators and in some cases, those in the social service front line. The guiding principles in improving Executive Function skills come in five key steps;
|
Five key principles in improving Executive Function skills. |
|
Teach deficit skills explicitly |
|
Work from external to internal |
|
Modify a task to match student’s capacity |
|
Use incentives |
|
Provide just enough support for child to succeed |
The role of Executive Function in the intervention process for children with special needs is of great significance. How much and at what age-group a child receives appropriate intervention in building his Executive Function skills does have significant influence in their profile as individuals, and how they develop further in their early adult years. These executive function skills developed through constant and good practice, and strengthened by the children’s daily lives experiences. Educators and practitioners have a heavy responsibility in ensuring that children with SEN get enough opportunities for them to apply and hone the EF skills they learn at home, school and in other regular settings. Acquiring the early building blocks of executive function skills is one of the most important and challenging tasks of educators in the early years, and the opportunity to build further on these rudimentary capacities is critical to healthy development through primary school years and adolescence. The increasingly competent executive functioning of childhood and adolescence enable children to plan and act in a way that makes them good students, classroom citizens, well-adjusted individuals and friends.
Hence, the importance of addressing and looking at issues of helping children with executive function deficits skills from a wider perspective i.e. from a big lens.
Written by:
Roslan M Saad – DAS Lead Educational Therapist
Published on 26 April 2023