Lazy Child or Executive Dysfunction?

by Nori Sarman, Psychotherapist, Clinical Consulting Systems

Do you have a child who appears to be lazy? Incredibly disorganized? Keep on misplacing his or her things? Has difficulty to stay focused to complete his or her homework? Easily distracted and seems to be avoiding school tasks?

Before you start losing your patience and turn red with frustration or start saying things to your child which you will regret later, you may want to take a moment to consider if his or her “laziness” is due to lack of motivation or is actually a cry for help. Very often, parents are too quick to jump into conclusion to blame a child for being plain lazy. The truth is, labeling your child is not going to make him or her better, it is only going to make the situation worse. Furthermore, a child may internalize negative labels such as lazy, slow or stupid and turn them into a self-fulfilling prophecy, which may end up with negative self-talk: “I am lazy. So why should I bother to try?”

So what possibly can be the problem if not lack of motivation? Motivation is a part of Executive Function. As such a possible reason for your child seemingly unmotivated behaviour can be due to executive dysfunction. Well, I believe by now you must be wondering: WHAT IS EXECUTIVE FUNCTION? or WHAT IS EXECUTIVE DYSFUNCTION?

Executive function was defined as goal‐directed behavior, including planning, organized search, and impulse control (Welsh, Pennington & Groisser, 1991). It is a set of mental processes that helps us to connect our past experiences (i.e. learning and memory) with our present actions and behaviour. We use our executive function to perform processes such as planning, organizing, strategizing, focusing, remembering details and managing time and space. For a child, these cognitive processes are critical in order to perform the following schoolwork successfully:

• Planning school projects
• Keeping track of time and complete work on time
• Multitasking
• Communicating ideas (verbally & in writing) in an organized and sequential manner
• Engaging productively in group discussion
• Waiting for turn to speak
• Initiating tasks or generating ideas independently
• Retaining information while doing something with it, for example solving multiple steps mathematics problem sums
• Checking work mid-way while thinking, reading and writing, in order to avoid mistakes

 

Hence, with a weak executive function (sometimes called “Executive Dysfunction”), a child would easily be misunderstood, both by parents and school teachers. As educational level increases, schoolwork gets tougher and children are expected to be more of independent learners. Thus, with increasing demand and lack of educational support, it is likely that children with weak executive function skills will fall far behind their peers. The struggle to catch up would leave them feeling anxious, causing mental exhaustion, inattentiveness, insecurity and emotional out of control. Unfortunately, there are no simple tests that could be administered by parents to identify all of the different aspects of executive function. Educational therapists and psychologists use a variety of tests, which include observation and trial teaching, to identify problems. If you suspect your child has executive dysfunction, it is advisable that you consult your child’s school and make an arrangement to speak with the school counselor or school psychologist. Although executive function deficits are most commonly associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder, they are also known to occur in children with ADHD, Fragile X Syndrome, conduct disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, traumatic brain injury, and schizophrenia (Ozonoff, 1998; Ozonoff, Pennington & Rogers, 1991; Willcutt et al., 2004).

Parents can help their children with weak executive functions skills by playing an active role as their consultant and facilitator. Ample opportunities should be given to allow children to organize themselves and parents can facilitate their children’s learning by helping them recognize and acknowledge their problems. It would also be very helpful if parents would not be too quick to solve the problem but rather encourage children to brainstorm for the solution while keeping an open communication with them. Given the ownership to solve own problem, children will be more likely to adhere with their ideas or strategies, which they have vested. Of course, parents can offer some physical rewards to reinforce positive behaviour.

With the growing influence of technology and mobile devices, parents can also encourage or teach children to utilise electronic organisers to assist them in planning and organizing. With built-in functions such as reminder, alarm and notepad, it would be useful lifelong tools to help children in becoming more self-reliant and independent. However, electronic devices could only help children with executive dysfunction to remember, record and organise their assignments and tests but not solving the root of the problem which is completing the school task effectively. Hence, in that view, it is imperative to equip children with executive dysfunction with metacognitive strategies that include effective learning strategies and self-regulation strategies such as planning, predicting, monitoring, evaluating and revising.

 

 

References:

Ozonoff, S. (1998). Treatment of executive dysfunction. In E. Schopler, G. B. Mesibov, & L. Kunce (Eds.), Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism (pp 263-289). New York: Plenum Press.

Ozonoff, S., Pennington, B. F., & Rogers, S. J. (1991). Executive Function Deficits in High-Functioning Autistic Individuals: Relationship to Theory of Mind. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 32(7), pp. 1081-1105

Welsh, M. C., Pennington, B. F., & Groisser, D. B. (1991). A Normative – Development Study of Executive Function: A Window on Prefrontal Function in Children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 7(2), pp. 131-149

Willcutt, E. G., Doyle, A. E., Nigg, J. T., Faraone, S. V., Pennington, B. F. (2005). Validity of the Executive Function Theory of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Meta-Analytic Review. Biological Psychiatry, 57(11), pp. 1336-1346