Course | Executive Functioning: Teaching Children Organizational Skills

About the Author(s)

1. Adina Soclof, MS, CCC-SLP
Adina Soclof, MS, CCC-SLP, is a Parent Educator, Professional Development Instructor and Speech-Language Pathologist working with children in a school setting. She received her B.A. in history from Queens College and her M.S. in communication sciences from Hunter College. Adina is the founder of ParentingSimply.com. She delivers parenting classes as well as professional development workshops for Speech-Language Pathologists, teachers and other health professionals. Adina is available for speaking engagements.

2. Leo Christie, PhD, LMFT
Leo Christie, PhD, LMFT, was a Florida-licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a doctorate in Marriage and Family Therapy from Florida State University. Past President of the Florida Council on Family Relations, Dr. Christie has more than 20 years’ experience in private practice with a specialty in child behavior disorders and as an instructor for over 500 live continuing education seminars for healthcare professionals. He is the founder of Professional Development Resources; a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to deliver continuing education credit courses to healthcare professionals throughout the United States.

Course Abstract

Executive Functioning: Teaching Children Organizational Skills is a 4-hour online continuing education (CE/CEU) course that provides strategies and tools for helping children succeed through overcoming executive functioning deficits.

Executive functioning skills represent a key set of mental assets that help connect past experience with present action. They are fundamental to performing activities such as planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention to and remembering details, and managing time and space.

Conversely, executive functioning deficits can significantly disrupt an individual’s ability to perform even simple tasks effectively. Although children with executive functioning difficulties may be at a disadvantage at home and at school, adults can employ many different strategies to help them succeed.

This course will enumerate and illustrate multiple strategies and tools for helping children overcome executive functioning deficits and improve their self-esteem and organizational abilities. Included are techniques for planning and prioritizing, managing emotions, improving communication, developing stress tolerance, building time management skills, increasing sustained attention, and boosting working memory.

Target Audience

Counseling, marriage & family therapy, psychology, school psychology, social work, and teaching.

Learning Objectives

1. List three symptoms of executive functioning difficulties
2. Identify and define the twelve executive functioning skills
3. Describe at least ten strategies to help children learn to listen
4. List eleven speech pattern techniques therapists can use to communicate with children
5. Name three strategies to develop each of the twelve executive functioning skills
6. Identify five technology aids therapists can use to help children develop executive functioning skills