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A Guide to Executive Functioning Issues in Children
Executive functions are the mental skills children use to hold information in mind, pause before acting, shift between ideas and organise steps towards a goal. They help with everyday tasks such as getting ready for school, following instructions, joining a game and completing an assignment.
These skills develop gradually through childhood and adolescence. A child might manage them well in one setting and find them harder when a task is unfamiliar, demanding or emotionally charged. Difficulty does not mean a child is lazy, naughty or unmotivated. It often means the task is placing more demand on their developing skills than they can manage independently.
What is executive functioning?
Researchers describe executive functioning in different ways, but three closely connected skills are often used as a helpful starting point:
- Working memory: holding and using information for a short time. For example, remembering the steps of an instruction while carrying them out.
- Cognitive flexibility: shifting attention, adjusting a plan or considering another way to solve a problem.
- Inhibitory control: pausing an automatic response, resisting a distraction or waiting before acting.
Planning, organising, starting tasks, monitoring progress and managing time draw on these core skills. According to the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, children are not born with fully developed executive-function skills. They build them through supportive relationships, experience and practice.
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What can executive-function difficulties look like?
All children forget things, lose focus or need help with plans at times. The examples below are clues, not a diagnostic checklist. Consider the child’s age, the demands of the situation and whether a pattern is persistent across time or settings.
Starting and finishing
- Not knowing how to begin a multi-step task
- Starting readily but losing track before the task is complete
- Needing repeated prompts for familiar routines
- Finding it hard to estimate how long an activity will take
Remembering and organising
- Forgetting part of an instruction or what they have just read
- Losing belongings or missing materials needed for a task
- Finding it difficult to organise ideas, schoolwork or a sequence of steps
- Becoming overwhelmed when several tasks compete for attention
Adapting and pausing
- Finding changes to a plan or routine particularly demanding
- Getting stuck on one approach when it is not working
- Acting before considering what might happen next
- Finding it difficult to move attention from one activity to another
Stress, fatigue, anxiety, language or learning demands, sensory overload and unfamiliar environments can all affect how well a child uses these skills. Looking at what happens before, during and after a difficult moment is often more useful than labelling the behaviour.
Executive functioning, ADHD and autism
Executive-function difficulties can occur alongside ADHD, autism, learning disorders and other developmental or health conditions. However, they are not the same thing. Not every child with one of these diagnoses has the same executive-function profile, and executive-function difficulty alone does not establish a diagnosis.
If attention, activity level or impulsivity is a particular concern, our guide to ADHD and education explains how these differences may affect learning and participation.
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How are executive-function concerns assessed?
There is no single test that captures how a child manages every real-life demand. A useful assessment begins with the question the family or school is trying to answer and considers the child’s strengths as well as their difficulties.
Depending on the concern, a psychologist may combine:
- a developmental, medical and educational history
- conversations with the child, parents or carers and teachers
- observations and examples from everyday settings
- rating scales completed by adults who know the child well
- tasks that examine skills such as working memory, inhibition, planning or flexible thinking
- information about learning, attention, language, emotions, sleep and the environment.
Performance tasks and questionnaires provide different kinds of information and do not always agree. Reviews of child executive-function assessment recommend interpreting results in context rather than relying on one score. A behavioural assessment may help clarify patterns across home and school and guide practical recommendations.
Practical support at home
The aim is to make the task manageable now while gradually helping the child take more responsibility. Choose one or two strategies, practise them consistently and review what is working.
- Make the next step visible. Give one clear direction, then ask the child to tell or show you what comes next.
- Move memory into the environment. Use a short checklist, picture sequence, calendar or labelled place for important belongings.
- Create predictable routines. Keep the order of common tasks consistent, especially during busy transitions.
- Break large jobs into smaller parts. Agree on a starting point and a brief check-in before moving to the next part.
- Make time concrete. Use a timer, countdown or visual schedule and include preparation and pack-up time.
- Plan with the child. Ask what might get in the way and what reminder or support would help.
- Fade support gradually. Shift from doing the task together, to prompting, to checking after the child has tried independently.
Notice the strategy and effort, not only the finished result. Specific feedback such as “You checked your list before leaving” helps the child recognise a skill they can use again.
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Support at school
Children use executive-function skills throughout the school day. Families and teachers can compare observations and agree on a small number of consistent supports. Helpful options may include:
- presenting instructions in short, logically ordered steps
- combining spoken instructions with a written or visual prompt
- checking understanding by asking the student to explain the first step
- breaking longer assignments into milestones with interim feedback
- providing a predictable place for materials and a routine for packing up
- allowing planning time before writing or problem-solving begins
- reducing unnecessary distractions and making transitions explicit.
The NSW Department of Education’s guidance on chunking and sequencing learning explains how manageable steps and a logical learning sequence can reduce working-memory demands.
What does the intervention evidence show?
Some activities and training programs can improve performance on the skills or tasks that children practise. However, a meta-analysis of experimental studies found little convincing evidence that training one executive-function skill reliably transfers to different, untrained skills or broad everyday outcomes. Be cautious with programs promising a general “brain boost” from a narrow computer task.
Exercise, play, mindfulness and relaxation can still be valuable for health, enjoyment and emotional wellbeing. They are best selected because they suit the child and address an identified need, not presented as a stand-alone cure for executive-function difficulty.
Support is usually strongest when it is connected to a real task, used in the setting where the task occurs and adjusted in response to the child’s progress. A clinician can help families prioritise strategies and address contributing concerns such as anxiety, sleep, learning or attention.
When should families seek help?
Consider professional support when difficulties are persistent, cause distress or significantly affect learning, friendships, family life or independence. It can also help when adults are unsure whether expectations match the child’s developmental level or when strategies have not improved day-to-day functioning.
You can book a consultation with the Quirky Kid Clinic or contact us to discuss the most appropriate next step.
View article references
- Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (n.d.). A guide to executive function.
- Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168.
- Kassai, R., Futo, J., Demetrovics, Z., & Takacs, Z. K. (2019). A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence on the near- and far-transfer effects among children’s executive function skills. Psychological Bulletin, 145(2), 165–188.
- NSW Department of Education. (2026). Chunking and sequencing learning.
- Silver, C. H. (2014). Sources of data about children’s executive functioning: Review and commentary. Child Neuropsychology, 20(1), 1–13.
- Wallisch, A., Little, L., Dean, E., & Dunn, W. (2018). Executive function measures for children: A scoping review of ecological validity. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health, 38(1), 6–14.
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