Skip to main content
Digital Seminar

Smart But Scattered: Executive Dysfunction at Home and at School


Faculty:
Margaret Dawson, EdD, NCSP
Duration:
6 Hours 16 Minutes
Format:
Audio and Video
Copyright:
Mar 07, 2023
Product Code:
POS041380
Media Type:
Digital Seminar - Also available: Digital Seminar
Access:
Never expires.


Description

Children who have deficient executive skills often have trouble getting started on tasks, get distracted easily, lose papers or assignments and forget to hand in homework. They make careless mistakes, put off work until the last minute and have no sense of time urgency. Workspaces are disorganized and teachers often refer to their backpacks or lockers as “black holes.” Often considered chronic underachievers, these children are at risk for academic failure as well as emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Dr. Dawson, co-author of the best-selling books Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, 3rd Ed. (2018), Smart but Scattered (Guilford, 2009) and Smart but Scattered Teens (2013, Guilford) uses case examples along with interactive discussion to demonstrate how the executive skills manifest in daily home and school activities. Learn how to assess these skills and take home evidence-based strategies to help children and adolescents overcome executive skills weaknesses.

Leave this seminar with a set of tools that includes strategies for task/environmental modifications, skill development through cognitive/behavioural techniques and creation of incentive systems. You will be able to give teachers and parents a means for developing and improving the following:

  • Organization
  • Time management
  • Impulse control
  • Goal-directed persistence
  • Executive skills critical for independent functioning

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.



CPD

PESI Australia, in collaboration with PESI in the USA, offers quality online continuing professional development events from the leaders in the field at a standard recognized by professional associations including psychology, social work, occupational therapy, alcohol and drug professionals, counselling and psychotherapy. On completion of the training, a Professional Development Certificate is issued after the individual has answered and submitted a quiz and course evaluation. This program is worth 6.5 hours CPD for points calculation by your association.



Handouts

Faculty

Margaret Dawson, EdD, NCSP's Profile

Margaret Dawson, EdD, NCSP Related seminars and products


Peg Dawson, EdD, NCSP, is a school psychologist and for over 20 years has worked at the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where she specializes in the assessment of children and adults with learning and attention disorders. She is co-author of the bestselling books on executive dysfunction, Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents: 2nd Edition (Guilford, 2010), Smart but Scattered (Guilford, 2009) and Smart but Scattered Teens (Guilford, 2013).

Peg is a past editor of Communiqué, the newsletter of the National Association of School Psychologists, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on a variety of topics, including retention, ability grouping, reading disorders, attention disorders, the sleep problems of adolescents, the use of interviews in the assessment process, and homework.

Peg has many years of organizational experience at the state, national and international levels and served in many capacities, including president of the New Hampshire Association of School Psychologists, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) and the International School Psychology Association.She has also participated in many of NASP’s leadership initiatives, including the Futures Conference and the development of both the second and third Blueprint for the Training and Practice of School Psychology. She is the 2006 recipient of NASP’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Peg received her doctorate in school/child clinical psychology from the University of Virginia.

 

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Margaret (Peg) Dawson is an author for Guilford Press and receives royalties. She is an author for Amacon publishers and receives royalties. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.

Non-financial: Margaret (Peg) Dawson has no relevant non-financial relationships.


Objectives

  1. Assess the relationship between the executive skills and brain development/function in relation to assessment and treatment planning.
  2. Propose strategies to accommodate and strengthen weak planning and organizational skill, to improve client level of functioning.
  3. Appraise assessment tools used to identify deficits in executive functioning to better inform your choice of treatment interventions.
  4. Determine how executive skills impact performance and activities of daily living at home and school for the purpose of client psychoeducation.
  5. Utilize environmental modification strategies to support deficits in executive skills thus improving treatment outcomes.
  6. Implement strategies that transition children from being externally prompted to internally regulated.

Outline

Executive Skills

  • Underlying theory
  • Executive skills in the context of brain function and child development
  • Limitations of the research and potential risks

Assessment of Executive Skills

  • Parent/teacher/student interviews
  • Behaviour rating scales
  • Observations
  • Informal assessment
  • Formal assessment

Intervention Strategies

  • Environmental modifications to reduce the impact of weak executive skills
  • Teaching strategies to help children develop/improve executive functioning
  • Using incentives to help practice or use skills that are difficult

Keys to Effective Intervention Design

  • Match the child’s developmental level
  • Use the child’s innate drive for mastery and control
  • Begin with environmental modifications
  • Effortful tasks and ways to make them less difficult
  • Use incentives to augment instruction
  • Provide the minimum support necessary
  • Apply supports and interventions until the child achieves mastery or success
  • Gradually fade supports, supervision, and incentives

Limitations of the Research and Potential Risks

  • Limited empirical evidence for the approach
  • Approach integrates evidence-based practices such as ABA and RTI
  • No “one size fits all” for any treatment modality

 

 

Target Audience

  • Counsellors
  • Social Workers
  • Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Therapists
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Speech-Language Pathologists
  • Teachers
  • School Guidance Counsellors
  • Case Managers
  • Nurses
  • School Administrators
  • Educational Paraprofessionals
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Other Helping Professionals Who Work with Children

 

Please wait ...

Back to Top