There’s a growing body of research that demonstrates the most successful way to address challenging behaviors in individuals with unique learning needs is to identify why the behavior occurs and teach an appropriate alternative replacement behavior. As we examine different scenarios in the classroom, workplace, and home environment, it becomes apparent that many children with autism and related developmental disabilities struggle with challenging behaviors because of deficits in executive functioning skills.
Executive functioning skills include a variety of different behaviors that help us effectively and efficiently complete tasks and interact with others. As parents, teachers, and professionals dealing with challenging behavior, by evaluating deficits in executive functioning skills, we can pinpoint the root cause or ‘function’ of challenging behavior and create a plan for replacement.
Assessing Executive Functioning Skills and Challenging Behavior
The first step in accessing challenging behavior is to identify the ‘root cause’ or function of challenging behavior. There are many different procedures and assessments available to help parents and teachers evaluate the function of challenging behaviors (ABC Data, Functional Behavior Assessment, etc.) Before you begin to teach executive functioning skills, start by identifying when challenging behaviors are most likely to occur, why they occur, and what skills might help a child be more successful moving forward.
9 Executive Functioning Skills To Teach To Reduce Challenging Behavior
If you’ve reviewed and assessed your child’s executive functioning deficits, and are ready to start working on replacement behaviors, consider one of these core executive functioning skills and how they might reduce challenging behaviors. Below you’ll find a detailed guide to each executive functioning skill, how the ability connects to challenging behaviors, and sample goals for how you might address the behavior.
1. Task Initiation
When you reviewed the function of your child’s challenging behaviors, are many of them related to escaping and avoiding tasks? Do you find yourself continually needing to nag your child to get started, even for familiar tasks? Does your child get easily distracted? Repeatedly need redirections from friends and family to solve problems independently? If you answered yes to these questions, it might be that your child needs support on task initiation. Task initiation involves a child’s ability to initiate and independently generate ideas, solve problems, and respond to tasks. It’s considered one of the core executive functioning skills and can be problematic for many children with ASD and attention-related diagnoses.
How Improving Task Initiation Can Reduce Challenging Behavior
It’s not difficult to see how task initiation ties to challenging behavior. Escape and avoidance behaviors can come in a wide range of profiles, from excessively chatting about a preferred topic, all the way to aggression or self-injury. By addressing task initiation, your child will not only encounter fewer aversives (e.g., prompting, ‘nagging’ parents, redirections), but they’ll also likely face higher rates of positive reinforcements (e.g., praise, success with goals, tangible reinforcers). The more quickly your child learns to complete tasks, the faster he or she can move on to preferred activities, ultimately reducing the time a child spends in challenging behavior.
Skills and Goals to Improve Task Initiation
If your child needs support to improve task initiation, consider targeting these goals and skills:
- Begins a task within ___ seconds of the instruction.
- Identifies and gathers the materials necessary to complete a task.
- Completes the final step of one task and moves on to the next job within ___ seconds.
- Responds to a countdown timer to begin a task.
- Independently identifies the starting point for an unfamiliar task.
- Refrains from challenging behavior when asked to start a task.
2. Task Completion/Sustained Attending
Closely related to task completion, children with unique learning needs may also struggle with task completion and sustained attending to tasks. Does your child get started with a job okay, but then quickly gets side-tracked? Do you need to monitor your child and give reminders to keep going? Do you frequently find household chores and homework half completed? Does your child have difficulty recognizing when he or she becomes distracted or minimizing distractions in the environment? All of these questions lead to the executive functioning skill of task completion.
How Improving Task Completion Can Reduce Challenging Behavior
Similarly to task initiation, children with task completion deficits may engage in challenging behaviors both to escape tasks in progress or if asked to return to a job once they’ve been distracted. By targeting and building a child’s task completion skills, you’re helping the child learn to complete tasks faster. Faster completion means the sooner your child can return to preferred activities, and the less time you’ll need to spend reminding or reprimanding.
Skills and Goals to Improve Task Completion and Sustained Attending
If your child needs support to improve sustained attention to tasks, consider targeting goals and skills like:
- Completes ___ number of homework or household tasks within ___ minutes.
- After beginning a task or instructed, sees the job through to the end without pausing for more than 30 seconds.
- Understands how to minimize and control distractions in the environment.
- Accepts strategies and suggestions designed to improve attention from others.
- Completes homework or household tasks in a distracting environment.
- Refrains from challenging behavior when asked to stay on task.
3. Planning and Organization
It may be the case that your child may get started okay with tasks and be able to complete them entirely, but only if there’s a clear, step-by-step organization. Do you find your child’s belongings disordered and directionless? Does your child regularly need to search for assignments, work materials, or belongings? How would you describe their desk, bedroom, vehicle, or backpack? Sometimes, challenging behaviors arise not from getting a task done, but from deficits in organization and keeping tasks together.
How Improving Organization Can Reduce Challenging Behavior
While organization means different things for different individuals, the ability to keep belongings and tasks neat and tidy can ultimately reduce challenging behaviors. Organization skills result in less frustration and a reduced need to use challenging behaviors to recruit adult help or escape a disordered task. Organization skills create a sense of control, which can frequently be a positive reinforcer for children with unique learning needs. Tasks finish more quickly and efficiently, leading to more time to engage in preferred activities.
Skills and Goals to Improve Organization
Depending on your child’s age and organization needs, identify one or two areas where he or she would most benefit from organization skills. Set up systems that work on these types of goals:
- Determines the order and sequence to complete a task or activity.
- Identifies a designated place for materials needed to complete a task.
- Returns materials back to the designated place following use.
- Creates a structure or order around frequently used materials.
- Creates an orderly plan to complete tasks.
- Uses a binder or organization tool as directed to keep papers, assignments, etc. in a neat and orderly fashion.
4. Planning and Prioritization
In tandem with organization, children must know how to prioritize once the organization and planning are outlined. Does your child take way too long to complete tasks? Do they frequently miss deadlines, arrive late, or fail to allow enough time to complete tasks? Do they suffer from decision fatigue, an inability to know where to get started, or how to identify the most important step? Does your child frequently jump into tasks at the wrong point or gather the wrong materials? All of these questions may indicate a need to focus on executive functioning skills of planning and prioritization.
How Improving Prioritization can Reduce Challenging Behaviors
If you answered ‘yes’ to the questions above, your child might be engaging in challenging behaviors during tasks because it’s easier to escape or avoid tasks when prioritization is difficult. They may also be seeking adult or peer assistance when prioritization skills go awry. By addressing and improving prioritization skills, you can help your child complete tasks more quickly and efficiently. Children with excellent prioritization skills encounter less frustration and confusion, tasks ‘go easy’ instead of meeting the struggles of missed deadlines and not enough time.
Skills and Goals to Improve Prioritization
You might consider working on prioritization skills with these types of goals:
- Identifies and communicates the most critical step in a task.
- Identifies and communicates the initial step to complete a task.
- Understands the sequence and order to complete multi-part tasks
- Understands and communicates how much time tasks typically take.
- Understands deadlines and the importance of meeting them.
- Completes ____ tasks and assignments per week without missing a deadline.
5. Self-Control
Executive functioning skills also include skills that aren’t necessarily connected to tasks, but to how we regulate our behaviors. Self-control–or the ability to control impulsivity and control one’s behavior at any given time–connects closely to challenging behaviors. Does your child struggle with thinking things out before acting? Do you describe your child’s actions as impulsive or ‘out of control’‘? Does your child struggle to articulate ‘why’ they engaged in a challenging behavior after it happened as if there wasn’t a strong reason or thought process in the first place? All of these relate to improving self-control and impulsivity.
How Improving Self Control Can Reduce Challenging Behavior
Self-control can be a bit trickier to connect to challenging behaviors with the same function-based reasoning. Self-control describes a child’s quickness to respond with challenging behavior, not necessarily the cause of the challenging behavior itself. By increasing self-control or the ability to control behavior at any given time, you’re increasing the probability that a child will use replacement strategies before challenging behaviors.
Skills and Goals to Improve Self-Control
Self-control can include a variety of different skills and behaviors. You might consider these types of goals to improve self-control:
- Understands and articulates the consequences of self-controlled vs. impulsive.
- Understands and demonstrates self-controlled behavior vs. impulsive behavior.
- Demonstrates control of personal space and voice volume when around others.
- Controls risky behavior to no instances in ____ weeks.
- Avoids ‘self-sabotage’ or choices that will reduce success.
6. Emotional Control
In the same line as self-control of impulsive behaviors, emotional control is another executive functioning skill tied closely to challenging behaviors. Emotional control involves the ability to keep feelings in check. Does your child have frequent outbursts? Over-reactions or violent/aggressive behavior when upset? Does your child struggle to bounce back after a set-back? Engage in high rates of negative thoughts? All of these may contribute to a need for increased development of emotional control.
How Improving Emotional Control can Reduce Challenging Behaviors
By developing and increasing emotional control, your child can begin to use strategies other than challenging behavior to act out and understand emotional states. While in some ways, it is developmentally appropriate for children and teens to rely on adult support for emotional control. However, developing greater emotional control allows children to recognize emotions as physical sensations in the body, rather than being controlled by them or act upon them.
Skills and Goals to Improve Emotional Control
Consider these types of goals and skills for improving emotional control:
- Understands and articulates emotionally controlled vs. uncontrolled behaviors.
- Understands the consequences of emotionally controlled vs. uncontrolled behaviors.
- Controls over-reaction with ___ or fewer instances of emotional outbursts in __ weeks.
- Accepts feedback from others and bounces back after a period of emotional outburst.
7. Shift/Tolerance of Change
One skill that combines closely with emotional control is ‘shift’ or the ability to tolerate unexpected changes. This executive functioning skill promotes flexible thinking and adjusting to changes and unpredictability. Does your child stall out, stop working, or have emotional or aggressive outbursts when changes happen? Do they struggle to make in-the-moment decisions? Do you find yourself creating complex systems or always ‘being on edge’ to avoid sudden changes or unpredictability?
How Improving Tolerance of Change can Reduce Challenging Behaviors
Increasing shift and tolerance of change can play a significant role when the function of a child’s challenging behavior relates to escaping or avoiding unpredictability. If the challenging behaviors happen to lash out when change is hard, escape the task when it changes without notice, improving shift may be a critical skill. Increasing tolerance helps your child move forward in jobs rather than stalling out, helps a child more quickly complete tasks, and encounter fewer consequences for challenging behavior.
Skills and Goals to Improve Shift/Tolerance of Change
Improvements in shift and tolerance of change can encompass a wide range of skill areas. Consider these types of goals to work on developing a child’s flexibility and tolerance to unpredictability:
- Understands and articulates why shift is important and what it means to be flexible.
- Can complete ___% of transitions–both predictable and unpredictable–between activities throughout the day.
- Switches or alternates attention between preferred and non-preferred topics/activities.
- Tolerates changes in routine or unpredictable circumstances without challenging behaviors.
- Avoids ‘rigid’ thinking that may disrupt completing a task.
8. Working Memory
Working memory–or a child’s ability to remember directions and recall directions while completing a task–is another executive functioning skill that commonly connects to challenging behavior. Does your child frequently stop in the middle of tasks to ask questions? Does your child struggle to retain directions? Does your child get easily frustrated or use challenging behavior when he or she forgets instructions? All of these indicate challenges with working memory.
How Improving Working Memory can Reduce Challenging Behaviors
Frequently the challenging behaviors of a child with poor working memory may be disguised as something else. When challenging behaviors come out in the middle of tasks because the child has forgotten the instruction, it may seem like escaping or refusal to complete the task. Improving working memory can decrease reliance on adults and reduce a child’s need to escape or avoid a task when he or she doesn’t remember what to do.
Skills and Goals to Improve Working Memory
Consider these types of tasks to improve your child’s ability to remember and recall instructions:
- Completes tasks without needing additional instructions on ___ % of opportunities.
- Understands and articulates how to use tools (visual schedules, written reminders, picture steps, etc.) to help recall instructions.
- Attempts to problem-solve first if he/she cannot recall the instruction before asking for help.
- Demonstrates self-control of challenging behaviors if he/she requires more help.
For some long-term working memory supports, click here.
9. Self-Monitoring
The final executive functioning skill reflects how a child understands his or her behaviors and how to make changes for the future. Self-monitoring behaviors can include both work-checking actions and relationship-monitoring behaviors. Does your child speed through tasks without evaluating completeness or identifying errors? Does your child need to be reminded to slow down and complete work carefully? Does your child struggle to recognize when his or her challenging behaviors negatively impact others? Is it difficult for your child to monitor his or her behavior and make changes based on those observations? If so, you may consider teaching self-monitoring skills alongside many of the other executive functioning skills above.
How Improving Self-Monitoring can Reduce Challenging Behaviors
Children with advanced self-monitoring skills demonstrate less reliance on adults for consequence-based feedback because they’re able to provide their consequences for challenging behaviors. Children who can effectively self-monitor behavior no longer use problems or challenging behaviors to recruit adult feedback and have a decreased need to escape or avoid tasks. Finally, they tend to develop their own external and internal rewards for behavior, rather than relying on others to deliver them.
Skills and Goals to Improve Self-Monitoring
Self-monitoring behaviors come in many different forms and individualized to the strengths of the learner. Consider some of these goals to get started:
- Understands and articulates the consequences of positive and negative behaviors
- Completes data collection or self-observation worksheets
- Self-monitors a challenging behavior and displays a resulting decrease in problem responding.
- Self-monitors skill-acquisition behavior and displays a resulting increase in positive responding.
How to Get Started
If you’ve decided to evaluate and teach your child executive functioning skills, it can be challenging to know where to get started. Contact a professional or work with your child’s care team to coordinate on which skills to target first. Don’t begin focusing all of the skills at once. Conduct a functional analysis of your child’s challenging behaviors and identify one or two replacement behaviors that are likely to create the most significant change. Remember, executive functioning skills and expectations may look different for a 10-year-old vs. a 25-year-old. Communication skills underlie all of the executive functioning skills listed above. You may need to target and establish those first, before moving on to more complex skills like self-monitoring.
Further Reading
- Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function®, Second Edition (BRIEF®2) – Gerard A. Gioia, Ph.D., Peter K. Isquith, Ph.D., Steven C. Guy, Ph.D., and Lauren Kenworthy, PhD
- Brief Report: Examining Executive and Social Functioning in Elementary-Aged Children with Autism
- Design a Function-Based Intervention – IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University
- Life Skills Advocate Blog: Helping Your Child Overcome Decision Fatigue
- Observing Behavior Using A-B-C Data – Dr. Cathy Pratt, BCBA-D and Melissa Dubie, M.Ed.