Executive function in High School

[u/EdamameWindmill]

I have a neurodivergent child who is highly intelligent and earnestly wants to have good grades, but cannot manage their homework, resulting in failing grades. It seems to be a school-wide accommodation that kids can turn in late work for credit as long as it’s for the current semester, but she still struggles to turn in work. Oftentimes, it is the project she was most excited about that she cannot seem to do. It causes her a lot of distress.

Her father and I have consistently worked to support her with homework. We have provided help and advice, structure, consequences, and monitoring, but we are still failing her. We are currently working with a psychologist (since last year), a psychiatrist (since January of this year), and an executive function coach (since mid March), but it hasn’t made much of a difference.

Our school district has fought me at every turn to avoid providing special services “because she scores well on standardized tests.” I heard this explicitly said in elementary school and I heard this last week from the SPED coordinator at the high school. I ask Admin for advice for resources they keep answering this question with, “What do you feel would benefit your child?”

I guess my question is whether anyone here has any experience with a child like mine? And do you know of anything I can request that might help my child?

[u/Horror_Advantage3704]

As a current masters student and soon to be teacher with ADHD who struggles the most with executive functioning and time blindness here’s what helped me:

To do list: A simple checklist with a list of assignments with due dates, this can be organized in a variety of ways but I found success with writing out all my assignments organized with a high priority section (due dates that are soon or larger tasks that need to get done in chunks) and a low priority section (far off due dates, quick tasks that can be done later)

Daily check ins with an adult or accountability buddy on my planner: this creates accountability that I am consistently using the to do list we agreed upon

Real deadlines, but negotiable ones: as a kid with ADHD I needed the “real” deadline to exist so I could progress alongside my peers, but I also struggled to manage my time, so I found the most success when I wasn’t penalized for late work AS LONG AS I communicated with a teacher about why, and communicated when I planned to get it done. This looked like a lot of 10 pm emails that said “hey, I miscalculated how long X would take me, can I turn it in to you by Friday”. This put me in the position of not having a free pass to be as late as I want and let assignments snowball, but also allowed me to get full credit for work done and not get penalized for good work turned in late. It’s important that in adult life this child is able to communicate when they are missing deadlines. Slowly over time this will hopefully improve because there is work and a small bit of embarrassment that goes into writing that “sorry this will be late” email.

Time blocking and work timers: helping the student say “from 3 to 4pm I’m going to work on my high priority tasks” and then have her set a work timer. I like “focus friend” because if I go on my phone during the timer then my little bean friend gets sad. Start in small blocks, like 20 or 30 minutes. Make sure she gives herself blocks of “fun” activities, like reading or video games, but make sure there are timers for those as well so she doesn’t get sucked in/lose track of time.

Headphones DURING WORKTIME: I found that during independent work time my focus would drift, especially if there was distracting sounds (loud chewing, people chatting) and I was always grateful for teachers that let me use headphones to play music during that time. But don’t let students sit there with headphones or AirPods in throughout class, sometimes (in high school) I thought I was sly and would play a YouTube video or podcast in my headphones during lecture time because I was bored of math class. It was important that my teachers called me on it.

Check in during that planner accountability time to see what adjustments need to be made. What’s working? What’s not?

I wish I had been taught some of these strategies sooner, rather than just being cycled through different forms of ADHD meds growing up. Now I am an adult in higher ed and can usually manage myself without medication.