Let’s talk about the real life skills your students need - not vocational skills, life skills. What are the skills your students need to be a productive member of their household and community? These essential processes are executive functioning skills and they are critical for building independent adults. The skills of planning, organization, shifting and sustaining attention, impulse control, and more are key to everything from making friends to having a job to completing a math test. In this session, learn how to identify the skill deficits that your students are struggling with under the area of executive functioning skills. Embrace the power of ‘yet’ – these are skills they don’t have, yet. Learn how to approach teaching and developing these skills with the same rigor and systematic planning that we give to other areas of need. Identify ways to setup an environment that promotes independence and problem solving. Finally, learn how to track progress and fade assistance. 

Audience Objectives: 

• Learner will be able to identify executive functioning skills and how these skills impact daily living. 

• Learner will be able to create activities, programs, and interventions to improve and build a range of executive functioning skills. 

• Learner will be able to create an environment that promotes independence and problem solving.