Shifting Focus: Executive Function in the Cerebral Driver's Seat

Be careful, Witty!

Few of us would hand our children the keys to a Formula 1 racecar, no matter how precisely it turns, smoothly it downshifts, or swiftly it brakes, not without hours upon hours of supervised, expert training at the very least. And yet, we supercharge our children's brains with honors this and AP that without necessarily teaching them the skills to operate their cerebral speedsters. The result? They hit the wall, maybe in the first turn, maybe not until the final lap, but in neither case do they finish the race unscathed.

If our children's intelligence is the car, then their executive function is the driver.

Executive function (EF) is not a subject, skill, or personality trait. It's the mind's management system—the set of cognitive processes that allow a student to do the following:

 • hold information in mind
• start tasks
• stay focused
• shift strategies
• monitor errors
• resist distractions
• follow multi-step procedures

THE THREE PARTS OF EF

In their landmark paper, Miyake et al. (2000) divide EF into three components:

1. Working Memory

• Holding information in mind while doing something with it—the mental equivalent of carrying groceries while unlocking the door.

2. Inhibitory Control

• Resisting impulses, distractions, and irrelevant information—the ability to ignore the buzzing phone while writing an essay.

3. Cognitive Flexibility

• Shifting strategies when the first one fails—the ability to say, “This isn’t working—let me try another way.”

They describe EF as “a set of general-purpose control mechanisms that regulate the dynamics of human cognition.” For Miyake et al., EF is the operating system of the mind—not a subject-specific skill.

These three components of EF are the behind-the-scenes abilities on which every academic task draws, and yet they are not typically addressed until something goes wrong—and sometimes not even then. Why? Because EF weaknesses are too often mistaken for laziness, carelessness, or lack of intelligence.

WHAT EF LOOKS LIKE IN REAL LIFE

Students with weak EF:

 • forget directions even when they understood them
• lose track of steps in multi-step problems
• freeze when a problem looks “different”
• start homework but drift
• reread the same paragraph without absorbing it
• write essays that are short, scattered, or incomplete
• memorize procedures instead of understanding concepts
• panic when the teacher changes the format of a question
• make “careless errors” that aren’t careless at all

In the post titled Fractious Fractions and Recalcitrant Radicals: The Straits of Algebraltar, I presented research pinpointing Algebra I as the class in which EF difficulties often first and most harshly reveal themselves (Harvard Center on the Developing Child). Harvard’s research makes it clear that EF weaknesses become academically visible in Algebra I because the cognitive load exceeds what rote strategies can handle. They conclude, “Children who do well in school are not just ‘smart’—they are able to plan, focus, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully.”

EF doesn’t belong to any one subject; it shows up wherever thinking gets complex. The same cognitive load issues that surface in Algebra I appear across the curriculum, just in different disguises.

In what follows, I present research on EF’s relationship to other academic domains.

Reading

Reading comprehension is one of the clearest examples of EF at work beneath the surface.

EF predicts reading comprehension because comprehension requires holding ideas in mind and integrating them. According to Cartwright (2012), comprehension requires “coordinating multiple sources of information simultaneously.” Some key findings in this domain include the following: EF predicts reading comprehension even more strongly than decoding skills; students with weak EF struggle to integrate ideas across sentences and paragraphs; EF deficits cause “fragmented reading”—kids can read words but not understand text (Cartwright, 2012; Sesma et al., 2009).

Writing

If reading draws on EF to integrate ideas, writing demands even more: it requires generating, organizing, and sustaining them.

Writing is EF-heavy because it requires planning, organizing, revising, and sustaining attention, or “the orchestration of multiple cognitive processes” (Graham et al. 2007). Just as in Algebra I, EF, then, is the likely bottleneck in writing instruction—not creativity or intelligence.

Science

Science adds another layer of EF complexity: students must coordinate evidence, hypotheses, and multi-step procedures in real time.

EF predicts success in scientific reasoning tasks, which require EF for the above reasons. Scientific thinking, Kuhn (2005) notes, requires “coordinating theory and evidence.” Students with weak EF struggle with multi-step experiments and data interpretation. EF supports the ability to revise beliefs given new evidence. In this light, it’s fair to say EF is the driver of reasoning, not just an Algebra I prerequisite.

School Readiness

These EF demands don’t suddenly appear in middle or high school; they begin shaping learning long before Algebra I enters the picture.

Diamond (2013), perhaps the foremost EF scholar, argues that EF is “more strongly associated with school readiness than are IQ or entry-level reading or math skills” and that EF predicts academic achievement across subjects—reading, writing, science—not just math.

Grades

Because EF governs how students plan, persist, and adapt, it shows up most clearly in the academic measure that captures behavior over time: grades.

According to the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (2012), students with weak EF rely on memorized procedures; students with strong EF build conceptual models. The Consortium notes that “grades are more a reflection of a student’s behaviors and strategies than of test performance alone.”

Equity

EF also helps explain why academic performance tracks so closely with environmental conditions.

Blair & Raver (2015) position EF as “a central mechanism through which early adversity affects school achievement.” What’s more, EF mediates the relationship between poverty and academic performance and, notably, predicts reading comprehension and writing quality.

What EF Is Not

Given how central EF is, it’s worth clearing away the most common misconceptions. The research consensus is clear: EF is not a skill:

 • It’s not a discrete, teachable task like “note-taking,” “multiplying fractions,” or “writing a topic sentence.”
• It’s not a single behavior you can practice in isolation.
• It’s not a content area.
• It’s not a personality trait (“organized,” “scatterbrained,” “motivated”).

What’s more, it’s not a set of poster-ready mantras.

 • EF isn’t “study skills.”
• EF isn’t “motivation.”
• EF isn’t “trying harder.”
• EF isn’t “being smart.”

What EF IS

Once we strip away what EF isn’t, its actual role becomes much clearer. EF is a control system that enables other skills. It performs the following functions in the brain:

 • coordination center
• traffic controller
• strategy selector
• error monitor
• attention regulator
• navigator

EF is the infrastructure that makes academic skills possible.

Now the Good News: EF Is Trainable

This brings us to the question parents care about most: If EF is so foundational, can it be strengthened? The research says yes.

EF is trainable because cognitive control systems are plastic. Even though EF isn’t a skill, it is modifiable:

 • it can strengthen with practice
• it can weaken under stress
• it can be supported by structure
• it can be scaffolded by adults
• it can be improved through explicit modeling
• it can be shaped by environment and experience

How do we know? First, the negative evidence: EF can be impaired, and if it can be impaired, it can be improved.

Diamond notes, “EF develops unevenly and is highly sensitive to stress, sleep, and emotional load.” According to Blair & Raver (2015), EF is sensitive to stress, context, and instruction—meaning it can be strengthened or impaired.

Now the positive: As cognitive processes, EF can be strengthened through the following:

 • practice
• scaffolding
• explicit modeling
• structured routines
• feedback
• reduced cognitive load
• environmental supports

Think of it as training capacities:

 • attention
• balance
• working memory span
• emotional regulation

None of these are “skills,” but all can be strengthened.

Taken together, the research paints a clear picture: EF isn’t fixed, and it isn’t fate.

Executive function isn’t a skill you learn; it’s the system that lets you use skills. And like any system—from memory to attention to balance—it can be strengthened with practice, structure, and support (Diamond, 2013; Graham & Harris, 2007). 

We can load our students’ schedules with honors courses, accelerated tracks, and academic horsepower, but without executive function, our kids will only spin their wheels. EF isn’t just the key we forget to hand them — it’s the key to their academic success. When we teach EF, we’re not tuning the engine; we’re teaching the driver. And once the driver is trained, the road ahead opens.

Sources

Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2015). School readiness and self-regulation: A developmental psychobiological approach. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 711–731.

Cartwright, K. B. (2012). Insights from cognitive neuroscience: The importance of executive function for early reading development and education. Early Education and Development, 23(1), 24–36.

Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (n.d.). Executive function & self-regulation. https://developingchild.harvard.edu (developingchild.harvard.edu in Bing)

Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168.

Farrington, C. A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T. S., Johnson, D. W., & Beechum, N. O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners: The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance. University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Graham, S., Harris, K. R., & Olinghouse, N. (2007). Addressing executive function problems in writing: An example from the self-regulated strategy development model. In L. Meltzer (Ed.), Executive function in education: From theory to practice (pp. 216–236). Guilford Press.

Kuhn, D. (2005). Education for thinking. Harvard University Press.

Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., & Wager, T. D. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex “frontal lobe” tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41(1), 49–100.

Sesma, H. W., Mahone, E. M., Levine, T., Eason, S. H., & Cutting, L. E. (2009). The contribution of executive skills to reading comprehension. Child Neuropsychology, 15(3), 232–246.