10 minutes
What executive function is Meet the mental processes that let a person start, plan, track and finish, and see how a disability can affect them without touching understanding.
What you’ll be able to do Name the main executive functions and give an example of how each can be affected by a disability while the person's understanding is intact. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most accurate reading? Document a next step for What executive function is: Think of one person described as not following through and identify which function the follow-through requires. The management layer Knowing what to do and doing it are different operations. Between them sits a set of mental processes that psychologists group as executive function: getting started, holding a plan in mind while acting on it, estimating and tracking time, shifting from one thing to another, stopping an impulse, and noticing whether the thing is done. These processes are the management layer over knowledge. They decide whether what a person knows turns into what a person does.
Many disabilities affect this layer directly. Brain injury is the clearest case, and it is far from the only one. The point for practice is that a person can understand a task perfectly, agree to it sincerely, and be unable to initiate it, hold it, or finish it without a structure someone else provides. When that person is recorded as unmotivated or noncompliant, the record is wrong about the mechanism, and everything built on it will be wrong too.
The functions, and what a gap looks like Initiation
Getting started without an external prompt. A gap looks like agreeing to a task and never beginning it. The person is not refusing; the start signal is not firing.
Working memory
Holding information in mind while using it. A gap looks like losing the thread of a multi-step instruction, or forgetting the purpose of a call halfway through.
Planning and sequencing
Breaking a goal into ordered steps. A gap looks like knowing the goal and being unable to say what to do first.
Time management
Estimating how long things take and tracking time as it passes. A gap looks like being consistently late, or believing a task will take ten minutes when it takes two hours.
Task switching
Moving attention from one thing to another. A gap looks like being stuck on a task, or being unable to return to it after an interruption.
Inhibition
Stopping an impulse or a habitual response. A gap looks like saying the first thing that comes to mind, or continuing an action after it should have stopped.
Self-monitoring
Noticing how it is going and whether it is done. A gap looks like a task left ninety percent complete, or a form submitted with a page missing.
Ask which function, not whether they care What you can change You control the question a team asks when a person does not follow through. Which function does this require is answerable; whether they care is not.
What to watch for Do not let motivational language into the record for a behavior that has an executive explanation. The label follows the person and shapes what every future worker expects.
Your next step At the next case discussion where someone says a person is not following through, ask which function the follow-through requires.
Understanding and doing are separated by initiation, working memory and follow-through. A gap between them is information about a demand, not a verdict about a person.
Carry this forward Executive functions include initiation, working memory, planning, time management, task switching, inhibition and self-monitoring; they are the management layer over what a person knows.
Brain injury, attention differences, autism, some mental health conditions, chronic pain and fatigue all affect executive function; understanding can be entirely intact while the ability to act on it is not.
A person who understands what to do and does not do it is showing an executive gap, not a motivational one, far more often than the record suggests.
A flashcard set on the functions, a scenario decision and a knowledge check.
Think of one person described as not following through and identify which function the follow-through requires.
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Course overview Next lesson Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
