What does neurodiverse mean?

A child who is neurodiverse has a brain that operates differently than the typical brain. Those who are neurodiverse, which includes diagnoses such as ADHD, autism, and learning disabilities, may learn and process information differently.

What are signs that my child may be neurodiverse?

Neurodiversity can include a learning disability such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, or dyscalculia; ADHD; autism; dyspraxia; and other diagnoses. If your child is neurodiverse, they may require specific supports and tutoring services to help them thrive academically. What are some signs that your child may be neurodivergent? Let’s take a look at different types of neurodiversity.
Signs your child may have ADHD

Individuals with ADHD often have difficulty with their executive functioning skills. They might demonstrate challenges in the following areas:

• impulsivity
• staying focused
• organization
• talking out of turn
• losing their belongings
• struggling to pay attention for long stretches of time
• making careless mistakes
• poor time management skills
• neglecting to self-check their work.

If your child demonstrates these challenges, you may want to consider having them evaluated and try some of the executive functioning strategies below:
To develop their time management skills, teach your child the Estimated Time (ET) verses Actual Time (AT) strategy. To do so, have them select a task, like a math worksheet they need to complete for school, and estimate how long they think it will take them to complete that task (and write down the ET). Then once they have completed the worksheet, they should note the AT, or actual time it took them to complete that task. Often, those with ADHD and poor time management skills will note a big discrepancy between the ET and AT when they start using this strategy, but the more they practice it, the more these times will merge, and their time management skills will improve.

For self-checking, which is a skill many students with ADHD struggle with, your child may benefit from the COPS strategy for checking their writing, which stands for Capitalization, Organization, Punctuation, and Spelling. At the bottom of their page, they should write these letters vertically with a check box to the left of each letter. After they have finished writing a paragraph or essay, they should self-check their writing for each of these elements one at a time, encouraging them to slow down and carefully self-check their work before turning it in. This strategy is also often used during dysgraphia tutoring sessions.

Signs your child may have dyslexia 

Dyslexia is another type of neurodiversity. Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that affects language skills, including reading, spelling, and writing. Those with dyslexia may struggle with learning individual letters and their corresponding sounds, decoding words, reading fluently, spelling accurately, and expressing their thoughts on paper when writing, amongst other related language challenges.

If your child is struggling with these skills, you may want to consider having them evaluated for dyslexia. However, Orton Gillingham tutoring can also help children with dyslexia tremendously. The Orton Gillingham method is a research-based, multi-sensory technique that helps students with and without learning disabilities develop stronger reading and spelling skills. It follows a systematic approach, integrating previously taught sounds and concepts as new ones are introduced, and is highly effective in developing these core skills. Students also tend to enjoy the multi-sensory tools that are part of Orton Gillingham tutoring lessons, including colored sand, magnetic tiles, shaving cream, mini whiteboards, and other related manipulatives.

Learn more about Orton Gillingham tutoring at
What Is Orton-Gillingham Tutoring? Multi-Sensory, Structured Help | EBL Coaching

Signs your child may have autism

Autism is part of a spectrum, so the signs can vary. Children with autism often have challenges with social skills, engage in repetitive behaviors, and have sensory differences. They may also have trouble with executive functioning skills – including planning and organization – and reading comprehension, especially when it involves abstract or inferential thinking.

If your child shows any of these difficulties, autism tutoring can also help them immensely. To develop their reading comprehension skills, an autism tutor may teach them to identify three key elements when reading: the topic, which is one, two, or three words describing the passage; the main idea, which is what the author is saying about the topic; and the important details, or salient information describing the main idea. They will learn to highlight the topic of the passage in blue, the main idea in green, and the important details in yellow, helping to make them a more active reader. Their tutor can then ask them inference questions and have them write a short summary describing the passage in their own words.

Learn more about helping your child with autism at: Tips for Helping Your Child with Autism Improve School Performance | EBL Coaching

When should you have your child evaluated?

If you notice your child struggling with any of the following skills, you may want to consider having them evaluated and seek specialized tutoring or executive functioning coaching for them:

• Demonstrates challenges with reading, writing, or math
• Struggles with organization, planning, or time management
• Shows consistent attention challenges
• Avoids doing their homework
• Demonstrates social challenges
• Shows low self-esteem or frustration related to school

Many children are neurodiverse, and with that comes numerous strengths. However, getting through school can be a challenge for these children. If you notice any of these signs of neurodiversity in your child, you may want to consider having them evaluated and consider ADHD coaching, Orton Gillingham tutoring, or autism tutoring. This instruction can help them immensely.

Learn how EBL Coaching can help your child with one-one-one dyslexia tutoring, learning disability tutoring, autism tutoring, ADHD tutoring in NYC, and executive functioning coaching by visiting www.eblcoaching.com.

Frequently asked questions

How is neurodiversity diagnosed?
Neurodiversity is diagnosed through a comprehensive evaluation, typically administered by a neuropsychologist or psychologist.

Can tutoring help neurodiverse students?
Yes, absolutely! Research-based, multi-sensory tutoring that is individualized to each student’s needs can help neurodiverse students thrive. Students with dyslexia tend to respond exceptionally well to Orton Gillingham tutoring and those with ADHD benefit from executive functioning coaching.

What does research tell us about early identification of learning disabilities?
Research tells us that identifying learning disabilities early can significantly improve academic outcomes. Don’t wait! If you see your child struggling, seek an evaluation and academic remediation as soon as you can.

The founder and director of EBL Coaching, Dr. Emily Levy, has been helping neurodiverse students in grades prek-12 excel academically with individualized tutoring for over 20 years.

The post Signs Your Child May Be Neurodivergent: ADHD, Dyslexia, And Autism appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Fall is a festive time of year, filled with colorful leaves, pumpkin flavors, apple cider, and candy corn. It is also a great season for learning! Help your child develop stronger reading, writing, and math skills with the fall-themed activities detailed below.

Reading

Rhyming

Your child can develop stronger phonemic awareness skills – a precursor to reading – with a fall rhyming activity. Think of fall-themed words, like hay, apple, leaf, pumpkin, and cider, and write each word on a flash card. If your child is able to read the words, have them read each word aloud to you; if not, read the words to them and ask them to come up with words that rhyme with each word, then write those words on the back of the flash card. For example, if the word is hay, your child might come up with words that rhyme with hay, like clay, may, day, say, pay, stray, and so on. If your child can write the words on the back of the card themselves, have them do so. If not, you should write them and read the words aloud to them as you point to each word.

Match It!

Build your child’s reading and memory skills with a game of fall-themed Match It! To play this game, come up with ten fall-themed pictures. Either draw them on flash cards using colorful markers (one picture per card) or print the images and paste them onto cards. Then on ten separate cards, write the word that corresponds to each picture. For example, you might have pictures of an apple, pumpkin, ghost, leaf, pie, and so on, each on separate cards, with the corresponding words written on other cards. Then flip all twenty cards upside down and mix them around. Take turns with your child turning over two cards at a time. When your child flips over a word card, ask them to try to read the word aloud, then match it with the corresponding picture card. If they make a match, they get another turn. The player with the most matches wins!

Create a Tree

Your child can work on letter/sound recognition and word reading using an apple tree! To make one, they should use brown construction paper to cut out a long rectangle that will serve as the tree trunk and smaller brown rectangles to serve as the branches. Your child should paste the smaller brown rectangles around the tree trunk. Next, they should use colored construction paper to cut out a mix of 26 small orange, red, and yellow pieces to serve as leaves and paste them onto the branches. Your child can then write each letter of the alphabet on the leaves (or you write the letters for them if they aren’t able to). Have your child tell you the name of each letter and its corresponding sound. Older children can write fall-themed words instead of letters on the colored leaves and can even write a sentence using each word in a separate notebook.

Writing

Sentence Puzzles

Have fun working on writing skills with your child using fall-themed sentence puzzles. Come up with a series of sentences that involve fall themes, like:

I love apple picking.

Pumpkin pie is the best dessert.

My mom’s favorite drink is apple cider.

Colorful leaves are beautiful.

Then write one word from each sentence on separate flash cards. Mix the cards around face-up on a table and have your child put the words together to form a complete sentence. Then they can rewrite each sentence in a separate notebook and read them aloud to you.

Fall Writing Journals

To further develop your child’s writing skills, have them create a fall writing journal. Start by doing a fun fall activity with them, like baking pumpkin muffins, going for a nature walk and finding colorful leaves, or picking apples. Then have your child write about the experience in their fall journal. Encourage them to include as many details as possible, like sights and smells they noticed when doing the activity, who they were with, what time of day it was, and how they felt at the end of the activity. The more they can practice writing, the better!

Math

Leaf Sorting

Fall is a great time to work on math skills! Go for a walk with your child and have them collect a mix of different colored leaves. Then work on sorting them by creating a three-column chart labeled orange, red, and yellow. Have your child glue the orange leaves in the orange column, the red leaves in the red column, and the yellow leaves in the yellow column. You can then have them count up how many of each colored leaf they collected and write that number at the button of each column.  Discuss greater/less than concepts, like which colored leaf they have the most or least of, and how many more of one color they have than another.

Pumpkin Seed Math

You can further work on math concepts using pumpkin seeds. Go to a pumpkin patch with your child and pick a pumpkin, then carve it and save the seeds for a fall math activity. Alternatively, you can buy pumpkin seeds if that’s easier. Work on basic addition and subtraction concepts with your child using the pumpkin seeds. For example, you might ask them to pull out three pumpkin seeds, then four more. Have them count up all of the pumpkin seeds and tell you the total. Then use a mini white board or sheet of paper to write the corresponding math problem: 3+4=7. You can use this same process to practice subtraction, multiplication, and division problems, all using pumpkin seeds.

Baking!

Fall is a fun time for baking. Make apple pie or another fall dessert with your child while working on math skills. Have them measure out the ingredients for the recipe to work on fraction concepts. Ask them how much of each ingredient they would need if the recipe was cut in half or doubled. You can even have them write out fraction problems, like if the recipe calls for 1/4 cup of brown sugar and they are doubling the recipe, they might write out 1/4 + 1/4 and then solve that fraction problem to come up with the total amount of brown sugar needed for the doubled recipe.

Fall is a great time for festive and fun activities. Take advantage of this time to build your child’s academic skills while enjoying the season.

The post Fall Activities That Build Your Child’s Academic Skills appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Reading is one of the most important skills for success in school. When students read regularly, they tend to perform better academically and demonstrate stronger comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, spelling, and writing skills – skills that affect nearly all aspects of school. For some children, the idea of reading is dreadful, especially when there are so many other ways to spend their free time. Help your child learn to love reading with the ideas detailed below.

Make it a ritual!

Start reading daily to your child when they are very young, even if you don’t think they will understand every word on the page. Just exposing them to books and language is a great start for developing a love for reading. Choose books that are colorful and engaging so your child enjoys the experience. When they are a little older and begin learning how to read, have them try to sound out some basic words in the books you read to them, including simple words like “in”, “mat” or “tub.” Later, you may want to bring in two types of books: shorter decodable books at your child’s reading level that they can read to you, and longer, colorful, more language-rich books that you read to them, which helps build higher level vocabulary and auditory comprehension skills. When your child is in elementary school and capable of reading on their own, have them read either out loud or independently for at least 20 minutes per day. You may want to encourage them to read right before bed, which creates a ritual and helps them wind down before going to sleep. Physical and electronic books are both great options; whichever one they prefer is fine, as long as they read consistently.

Let them choose the topic

Another great way to help your child enjoy reading is encouraging them to read books on any topic of their choice. Just about any topic can work – dinosaurs, rainbows, tornadoes, zoos – you name it! Help them find reading material on that topic and don’t just limit it to books; newspapers, magazines, and articles from the internet count too. Once they develop proficiency with reading material on topics they love, they will likely start to venture into other topics and begin reading a more vast array of books and reading material as their confidence and joy for reading improves.

Create a cozy reading space

Help your child set up an inviting, cozy reading space in your home dedicated to reading. Perhaps you can create a fort made out of pillows with a small seating area inside it. Your child can even decorate it with mini lights and pictures and maybe even keep a flashlight inside it for nighttime reading. Start a ritual that your child can look forward to, where at a certain time each day you crawl into this space with them and read together. Eventually they will likely start to read on their own in this space, finding comfort and joy in this uplifting and cozy spot for reading.

Family time!

When encouraging your child to read more, it’s important that you lead by example. It’s easy for adults to neglect reading and instead spend time on their phones or devices looking at social media or writing emails late into the evening. Instead, create a designated family reading hour – perhaps right before or after dinner or before everyone goes to sleep. During this time, all family members should pick a book or reading material of their choice and gather around a comfortable area. The entire family should read together at the same time. As an added activity, at the end of the reading hour, you can go around and have everyone discuss what they read and why they would or would not recommend it to others. If one hour is too long, try smaller segments, like 30 or 45 minutes, and if every day is too much, try starting with just two or three times per week. The key is making it a fun, comfortable, and consistent experience that your child will look forward to.

Go to the library!

The library is a great place, filled with wonderful books on so many different topics. Take a trip to the library with your child. Let them grab any books that call out to them and spend some time at the library either reading to them or letting them read to themselves. They can even just turn the pages of books and browse the pictures if they aren’t able to read. Let them check out any books they’d like and encourage them to read them at home before returning them and picking out new ones.

Reading is a key skill that affects nearly every aspect of school. The earlier you can foster a love for reading in your child, the more likely they will find confidence and academic success.

The post Tips to Help Your Child Love Reading appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Excelling in school can be challenging for students with autism. They often have language, communication, social, and sometimes behavioral difficulties. As a parent, you want your child to do well academically and meet their full potential, but you may not be sure what to do. Try some of the ideas below to help your child with autism thrive in school.

Create a Visual Schedule

Children with autism tend to respond well to visual schedules, which help them anticipate the plan for the day. Create a visual schedule for your child on a poster board, starting with the time they wake up. You might list all of the items they need to do in the morning, such as: get dressed, brush their teeth, eat breakfast, and pack their backpacks. Try drawing or printing a picture describing each item and place it next to the item on the list. If it’s helpful, you can add checkboxes for each day of the week where your child checks off each item as they complete it. Create a similar schedule for after-school activities, like: eat a snack, complete homework, take a shower, have dinner, and get ready for bed – with corresponding pictures. The more structure and order you can bring to your child’s day, the better!

Set Routines

Students with autism tend to thrive on routines. Set up a morning and after-school routine for your child that is consistent each day. For example, you might arrange a study space in their room or on a designated table where they complete their homework regularly. When they come home from school each day, direct them to this study space. Help them look in their assignment book or online school portal to gauge which assignments they need to complete, then encourage them to come up with an order for completing them. Perhaps they will complete their math homework first, followed by English, and then science. Maybe set a designated time frame during which they will complete their homework; for instance, they might work for 20 minutes, then take a 5-minute break, and so on, until their work is complete. After they finish their homework, perhaps they can have a 30-minute athletic or relaxation break before going to an activity, having dinner, and getting ready for bed. Structured routines tend to work well for students with autism.

Advocate for Your Child

Parents are usually their child’s best advocate. At the start of the school year, set up a meeting with your child’s teacher and service providers, including their tutor, speech-language therapist, occupational therapist, and other related providers. Make sure the teacher and therapists review your child’s IEP (if they have one) and tell them strategies that have or haven’t worked for your child in the past. Set up a plan for communicating with each team member – via email, phone calls, or even in-person check-ins – to make sure your child is receiving the appropriate services and is continuing to show improvements. If your child plateaus or isn’t progressing, discuss with the team changes that can be made, like more frequent specialized tutoring or speech-language therapy sessions, in order to help them continue to grow. Keep in mind that your child may do well one school year only to find that the following year (or even partially through a given year), they start to struggle. Always stay on top of how your child is doing and make sure they are consistently receiving the appropriate support services.

Build Stronger Reading Comprehension Skills

Many students with autism have strong decoding skills; they can sound out words well when reading but struggle to comprehend the material. Teaching your child with autism strategies for improving their comprehension skills can be very helpful. Try helping them learn to visualize information that they read, as follows:

Read a story out loud to them, one sentence at a time. Stop after the sentence and tell them to form an image of the information they heard, then ask them questions about it. For example, the first line of a story might be: One evening Jack came home and knocked on the door. Ask your child to form an image of this line, then ask questions like, “How old do you think Jack is? What color hair does he have? Is he tall or short? Is it raining out or clear? Is the house old or new? What color is the door?” By asking these types of questions, you are helping your child form a clear image of the story in their minds. Follow this same process for each line of the story until you finish it, then ask your child to retell the story in their own words, including all of the visual details they added and can recall. You can even have them draw a picture of the image they formed in their mind for each line of the story, and they can later apply this same visualizing strategy to passages they read to themselves. Learning to visualize can help improve your child’s overall comprehension and language skills.

To further develop your child’s reading comprehension skills, teach them a tri-colored highlighting strategy. Explain to them that when we read, there are three elements we should look for: the first is the topic, which is one, two, or three words describing the passage (like rainbows or dinosaurs). They should highlight the topic in blue. The second element to look for is the main idea, which is what the author is saying about the topic. For example, if the topic is dinosaurs, the main idea might be: There were many different types of dinosaurs. They should highlight the main idea in green. Finally, your child should go through the passage and highlight the important details in yellow. This highlighting strategy teaches them to be more active, rather than passive, readers, and can help them improve their overall reading comprehension skills.

Students with autism may often struggle in school, but they also have a lot of potential. Try some of these ideas at home to help your child build stronger academic skills and confidence and help them thrive in school.

The post Tips for Helping Your Child With Autism Improve Their School Performance appeared first on EBL Coaching.

The post Distinguishing Between Autism and ADHD in Children appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Date published: 6/8/23

Listen to the full podcast here

In this podcast, Dr. Levy discusses ways to help children with autism do well in school.

Being a parent to a child with autism can be challenging. These children might be distractable, struggle to communicate, have behavioral challenges, or demonstrate difficulty with transitions. Yet children with autism can have many gifts too – they can be very caring individuals, can have great memories for facts, and are often good rule followers. It is important that you know your child’s strengths and weakness and always advocate to make sure that they receive the most appropriate services.

When your child starts a new school year, set up a meeting with their teacher and any service providers at the beginning of the year. Tell them about your child’s strengths and weaknesses and discuss strategies that have worked well for them and others that have not worked as well. Discuss a plan for regular communication and make it clear that you are fully vested in your child’s success and want to work as a team with them to help foster your child’s growth. Also try to notice how your child learns best. Many students with autism do well with a visual schedule of which activities to anticipate, and students with autism often learn well using a multisensory approach. Discuss the services your child will receive at school. Some students benefit from a shadow teacher to help keep them engaged in class. Others need a behavior plan with strategies in place for if and when they become overwhelmed or demonstrate behavioral challenges. For some students, having one-on-one special education tutoring to build their unique academic needs can make an immense difference in their academic performance. Read more at Organizational Tools for Academic Success – EBL Coaching.

With the right support and services, students with autism have the potential to do well in school. It is important to always be your child’s best advocate and ensure that they are continuously receiving the most appropriate services, both in and out of school. 

Read more at Autism – Tips for Parents – Better Health Channel.

The post Dr. Emily Levy on the Autism Resource Podcast: Tips for Helping Students with Autism Succeed appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Date published: 5/17/23

Listen to the full podcast here

In this podcast, Dr. Levy discusses strengths and weaknesses of students with autism and how to best help them.

Students with autism have varying types of challenges. Some are nonverbal and struggle significantly to communicate, while others are fully verbal and have difficulty with skills such as social communication, abstract language, and changes to their routine. There are others that fall somewhere in the middle, in different ranges of the autism spectrum. 

Many students with autism, however, struggle with similar skills. They often have difficulty with change and benefit from being made aware of their routines and schedules ahead of time, along with any changes to these routines. They often thrive with a visual schedule that they can see, including how their day will start and what they will do throughout the day, broken down into increments. Many have trouble with language and communication and often have difficulty participating in classroom discussions. They tend to have trouble picking up on nonverbal cues and sustaining friendships. Many struggle in environments that have a lot of sensory stimuli, including loud noises and bright lights. Read more at Differentiating Between ADHD and Autism in Children.

At EBL Coaching, when we provide special education tutoring to students with autism, we take these characteristics into consideration when creating individualized learning plans for each student. We often create visual schedules for each tutoring session and limit sensory stimuli. We also target their academic needs during the tutoring using research-based techniques. For instance, many students with autism struggle with reading comprehension – especially inferencing and abstract language. They may also have difficulty expressing their thoughts on paper in an organized fashion when writing and struggle with their executive functioning skills. To remediate these challenges, we create individualized special education tutoring plans using multisensory techniques that are customized to the needs of each student. This type of instruction can truly help students with autism make significant progress with their academic and language skills.

Read more at Parenting a Child with Autism: Strategies and Support (mind-diagnostics.org).

The post Dr. Emily Levy on the Autism Live Podcast: Learning Strategies for Students with Autism appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Date published: 4/27/23

Listen to the full podcast here

In this podcast, Dr. Levy discusses ways parents can help their child with autism develop stronger academic skills.

Students with autism may have academic strengths, including accurately decoding and spelling words. However, they tend to struggle with other academic skill areas such as “seeing the big picture” when reading and making inferences from information that they read. They may have trouble expressing their thoughts on paper when writing and often have weak organization and executive functioning skills. By teaching your child strategies for developing their areas of weakness, you can help them thrive in school.

Students with autism typically do well with structure and routine. When we provide special education tutoring to students with autism, we usually let the student know at the start of the session what we plan to cover that day, broken down by skill and time increments. For instance, we may create a visual schedule that says we will spend 25 minutes on reading, 25 minutes on writing, and 10 minutes playing a learning game. We typically show the student the visual schedule before the session begins so that they know what to expect. If there will be any changes, including skills we plan to focus on or how much time we will spend on a given lesson, we give them ample notice about these changes rather than immediately switching gears without notice.

To help them manage their school work, we often help students with autism create a structured plan for the order in which they will complete their assignments, including which one they will do first, second, third, etc., and go over that plan with them. We may even discuss how much time they think each assignment will take and write down the ET, or estimated time, next to each assignment, then later compare it to the AT, or actual time it took, to build stronger time management skills. Read more about helping your child with autism build stronger executive functioning skills at Helping Autistic Students Build Stronger Executive Functioning Skills – EBL Coaching.

Students will autism have unique strengths and weaknesses. By continuing to emphasize their strengths while teaching them strategies for building their areas of weaknesses, you will help set your child up for academic success.

Read more at Helping Your Child with Autism Thrive – HelpGuide.org.

The post Dr. Emily Levy on the Autism Wine Hour Podcast: Autism Tutoring Techniques appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Date published: 2/15/23

Listen to the full podcast here

In this podcast, Dr. Levy discusses ways parents can advocate for their special education child to help them thrive in school.

Special education students often have many gifts, but they also have unique and individual needs. Some thrive in math but struggle with reading and writing. Others have strong academic skills but have difficulty with their executive functioning skills, including organization, planning, prioritizing, and time management. Students might have autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, ADHD, or a combination of diagnoses. As a parent, it is important that you consistently advocate for your child, year after year.

Many different services and accommodations are available to special education students based on their needs, as defined by their IEP or 504 plan. Students may qualify for extra time, preferential seating, a scribe, speech therapy, occupational therapy, pull-out special education tutoring, or other related services. You might find that your child is thriving in school one year with a certain set of services and accommodations only to find that the following year – or even partially through the current school year – their performance begins to sink. 

As a parent, you should always be advocating for your child. At the beginning of the school year, schedule a meeting with your child’s teacher and any other service providers. Tell them about your child and what has or hasn’t worked in the past and try to make sure they read your child’s evaluation reports, IEPs, or 504 plans if available. Then stay in touch with them throughout the school year. Schedule periodic calls or meetings; don’t wait until the end of the school year to find out about any struggles or challenges. Be active in constantly evaluating and reevaluating the services and support your child is receiving to make sure they are consistently getting what they need. Learn more about strategies for helping your special education child at Strategies For Your Child with a Learning Disability or ADHD – EBL Coaching.

With the right support, students with special education needs have the potential to thrive academically.

Read more at Navigating the special education process | LD OnLine.

The post Dr. Emily Levy on the My Child Will Thrive Podcast: Tips for Advocating for Your Special Needs Child appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Many children with autism struggle to start and complete their homework assignments. They may lose papers, notebooks, and teacher's notes. Some may find it difficult to plan and prioritize their actions, and to self-monitor. When children struggle in these areas, it is often a sign of issues with executive functioning skills. These are skills that play a significant role in success at school, but many autistic children find them particularly challenging. The following are some strategies that you can use to help your child with autism build stronger executive functioning skills.

Time Management

Children with executive functioning challenges often need help with time management. They might procrastinate or not have a good sense of how long a task might take to complete. You can strengthen your child's time management skills with a time management strategy based on estimated time/actual time. When children have a task to complete, such as a math worksheet or a science packet, have them estimate how long they think the assignment will take to complete and write down the estimated time. Once the task is completed, have them note how long the assignment actually took to complete and write down the actual time. There will often be a big difference between these two times when students with time management issues start using this technique. Over time, however, the two times will become closer as they practice the technique and make more realistic estimates. Read more at How to Build Executive Functioning Skills With Homework - EBL Coaching.

Organization

Poor organizational skills are a common characteristic of executive functioning challenges. If your child loses papers and has a messy backpack or a cluttered desk or room, you may want to consider this three-tier organizational strategy. Tier one involves designating a working notebook that your child will carry to school on a regular basis. It could be made up of one folder and notebook per class that ideally are color-coded, or a large three-ring binder divided by classes. One day per week should be designated as the time to clean out the notebook and remove papers that no longer need to be carried on a regular basis. Tier two entails filing these papers in an accordion file. The accordion file could have three sections for each class: homework, notes, and tests or quizzes. The papers from the working notebook are placed into the proper section of the accordion file and saved for the purpose of studying for a quiz or test. Tier three is a file drawer or cabinet for projects completed by your child or well-written essays that are worth saving for the long term. Read about additional organizational skills at Organizational Tools for Academic Success - EBL Coaching.

Create a Schedule

Individuals who struggle with executive functioning skills often fail to create a well-organized schedule. They might jump from one task to another with little or no planning. To address this challenge, you can map out steps for your child for each part of his or her day when at home. For example, your child might have five steps to complete in the morning before leaving for school: wake up; get dressed; have breakfast; brush teeth; and check backpack to make sure it has all necessary items for the day. You may want a checklist for the backpack, too.

You could also create a colorful poster to map out this routine with pictures or images that correspond to each step. A similar schedule could be created for after-school and pre-bedtime activities. It may be worth asking if your child's teacher would be willing to prepare one for the school day.

Play Games

Playing games is a fun way to improve executive functioning skills that can involve the whole family. In the game Jenga, for example, players try to figure out what will happen if they remove a block from the tower. They need to determine if it will make the tower fall, and if they should try to pull the block out slowly or quickly. Thinking about strategies and the best way to proceed can help improve executive functioning skills. Other possibilities include playing a sequencing game in which a set of four to six pictures must be placed in the right sequence to illustrate the correct way to complete a task such as washing a car or making lemonade. The number of pictures can gradually be increased so that the game is more challenging. Playing a memory game is another great way to build attention and improve working memory skills, both of which are important aspects of executive functioning. A series of cards are placed face down on the table, and players must turn over two cards and remember what they are in order to find future matches.

Memory Matching Game

1. Print out this page on cardstock or construction paper. Cut out each card.

2. Lay the cards face down randomly on a table.

3. Player 1 will turn over two cards. If the two cards have the same picture, the player will keep the cards and go again. If the two cards are not a match, the cards are turned face down again and player 2 will take a turn.

4. The person with the most matches when all the cards are gone is the winner.

Download Game (2-page .pdf)

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