Does your child demonstrate difficulty with impulse control, getting organized, remembering directions, or completing daily tasks? These are related to executive function skills, which play a significant role in our daily lives. These are not skills that are innate. These skills develop throughout childhood as we learn and play. 

Executive function includes two ‘types’ of skills: cognition and behavior. Cognition (thinking) skills are related to planning, organization, time management, and self-monitoring. Behavior (doing) skills relate to response inhibition, emotional control, sustained attention, task initiation, and flexibility.

Below are some fun ways to work on executive function skills with your children: 

• Use early childhood activities like sorting games, copying block structures, Simon Says, Freeze Dance, and Red Light-Green Light.
• Play games with patterns, sequences, and memorization (i.e. obstacle courses, memory games, Bop It). 
• Include them in cooking/ baking activities, including gathering the supplies.
• Have the child help make a grocery list and go shopping.
• Reverse roles and have the child teach the steps of the activity/game.
• Use the “chunking” strategy to group similar steps together, making it more manageable.
• Use visual aids like schedules, checklists, video modeling, etc.
• Play turn-taking games such as Connect Four, Jenga, and UNO.
• Model flexible thinking during unexpected situations or changes in routines.
• Ask children to make predictions & evaluate their own performance.
• Solve hidden-picture activities (Highlights magazine has them, or you can search “free printable hidden picture activities” online).
• Yoga (there are a lot of free children yoga YouTube videos online)
• Mazes (available for free online)

Written by Brittany Becvar M.S. CCC-SLP and Brianne Griffin, MOT, OTR/L