How many times have you encountered a scenario like this with your neurodivergent learner—whether they’re a child, teen, college student, or adult?
You and your learner have worked for hours on teaching an executive functioning skill in the classroom–let’s say, using a visual timer for homework sessions. Your learner—whether a student or an adult—has steadily progressed towards independence and can now complete 30 minutes of attentive work in the classroom with just the timer.
Great—the IEP goal is met.
Then, two weeks later, you get an email from your learner’s tutor (or accountability partner) that homework sessions aren’t going so well after school. Your visual timer strategy shows little or no success and the tutor essentially has to “start from scratch” because your learner is struggling to utilize the skill “in real life.”
This is just one of many examples of “failure to generalize” – or when a learner demonstrates a behavior or skill in one setting or with certain materials, but struggles to demonstrate the same skill in other situations.
When skills don’t generalize, neurodivergent learners can hit frustrating roadblocks. It doesn’t help with skill gaps. It creates frustration for the teacher, coach, parent, and learner when things need to be taught again and again. And most importantly, it means valuable time is wasted that could be used focusing on other executive functioning skills.
So why don’t we spend more time talking about how to promote generalization with our learners?
This article shares practical steps that parents, teachers, coaches, and adult learners themselves can use to help skills carry over to real-life situations. With a few additional considerations, you’ll better ensure that you’re preparing learners for the real-life experiences where they need EF skills the most.
For a quick look at how these abilities typically evolve from infancy through adulthood, explore our Executive Functioning Skills by Age Guide.
Click here to jump to the TL;DR summary.
Understanding the Need for Generalization
Before we dive into the How-To steps for generalizing executive functioning skills, let’s talk more about the behavioral science of generalization and what we know about how skills transfer between environments.
What is generalization?
By textbook definition, generalization is the ability to complete a task, perform an activity, or display a behavior across settings, with different people, and at different times. Generalization in humans is thought to have evolved in order to help us better apply prior knowledge in more effective ways. One can easily imagine the problematic issues we’d have if humans had to re-learn a task essential to survival each time we encountered it in a similar, but different setting.
Response Generalization vs. Stimulus Generalization (And Why Your Learner Needs Both)
There are two primary types of generalization relevant to working with neurodivergent individuals–response generalization and stimulus generalization. Both are necessary to evaluate if your learner is struggling to demonstrate skills in other settings.
Stimulus Generalization refers to demonstrating similar behaviors in the presence of different environmental conditions. Ordering online is a good example of stimulus generalization. Even though each website has a slightly different process and steps to purchase online, when shown enough examples, a learner is able to generalize to new websites. Failure to demonstrate stimulus generalization tends to be the most common issue discussed when transferring executive functioning skills from one environment to another.
Response Generalization refers to demonstrating different behaviors in the presence of similar environmental stimuli. Social greetings are a good example of response generalization. Each time your learner uses a different greeting (“Hey Ms. ____!” “Good morning.” or “What’s up?”) they demonstrate response generalization – different responses to the same environmental stimulus.
Real-World Examples of Generalization
Because generalization can be a tricky concept to grasp, we have a few more real-life examples:
Why “Train and Hope” Fails
It’s not entirely known why some neurodivergent individuals—particularly autistic people, people with ADHD, or those who experience social anxiety—may struggle more with generalization than their peers.
Before the 1970s, few documented strategies existed to help neurodivergent people generalize skills. Instead, researchers and educators used the “Train and Hope” method– or teaching new skills in hopes that they naturally generalize later. As you might imagine, train and hope fails in a high percentage of opportunities.
Let’s be overwhelmingly clear: As a provider, teacher, coach, or parent, if you aren’t planning for generalization, you’re taking a significant risk with your learner’s progress.
Thankfully, the fields of psychology, behavior analysis, and education have identified systematic and intentional ways to support generalization in learners. Let’s cover those now.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Promote Generalization of Executive Functioning Skills
While there are many studies that show different ways to successfully generalize skills with neurodivergent learners, below are 5 ways you can promote generalization of executive functioning skills with your learners.
Vary Your Instructions and Settings.
Sometimes known as “train loosely,” one of the easiest ways to promote generalization is to vary up how you teach a skill to your learner. We often suggest deciding on the base essentials of the instruction (what must happen every single time a learner is asked to do the task), and anything else that can be changed should be varied during the teaching phase.
Let’s go back to our example from earlier of a learner failing to generalize using a visual timer for homework.
In this scenario, the “train and hope” method might be teaching the student to use one type of visual timer, with one staff member, at the same time of day, with only one homework subject.
In contrast, promoting generalization might include: practicing with different timers, practicing with different types of homework or work tasks, or asking other staff (or colleagues) to practice timers in different class periods or work blocks. Each of these individuals will present the instruction in a slightly different way, promoting your learner’s responding in different settings.
Choose Set-Up and Materials Learners Can Use Anywhere.
We’ve seen many examples of educators with good intentions putting strategies in place in the classroom that don’t make a lot of sense outside of that setting. Whenever you begin teaching a new executive functioning skill, consider what the end result or long-term response you’d like to see from the learner looks like. In as many ways as possible, use that as your guide for choosing the materials and the behaviors you’re looking for.
In our visual timer example, a “train and hope” failure might be only practicing homework using the $200 glass sand timer that sits on the desk in the SpEd classroom. Even if it’s your learner’s favorite, it’s not practical to haul an expensive, breakable item everywhere the learner needs to practice attentional control.
Instead, promote generalization by using the learner’s smartphone or smartwatch timer—something handy, easy to carry, and appropriate for most situations.
Contrive opportunities, including the most difficult ones.
When we work on generalization, we also want to expose our learner to enough practice opportunities that the skill is more likely to happen in the future. This includes practicing the situations that you or the learner identify as the most difficult.
Since you can’t predict how your learner—whether they’re a student, teen, or adult—will be asked to use executive functioning skills down the road, programming for generalization by teaching different scenarios, in different conditions, or with distractions allows them to make mistakes, receive feedback, and try again in a safe environment.
To promote generalization in our visual timer example, perhaps you contrive opportunities to practice different types of homework or work tasks, practice using the timer when friends, family members, or coworkers create distractions, and practice what to do when there are interruptions or when the timer malfunctions. By contriving different scenarios, including those most likely to cause your learner difficulty down the road, you’re increasing the probability they’ll be more successful in the future.
Set Goals that Include Generalization
One additional way to support and plan for generalization is to embed it into the mastery criteria for coaching goals, workplace objectives, or IEP goals. If generalization is included in the way a goal is written, it’s not considered complete until the executive functioning skill is shown across different settings, with different instructors or colleagues, or with different materials.
Consider writing goals with criteria like:
- “demonstrates across two different settings”
- “shows skill when asked by three different mentors”
- “at school, at home, and in the community”
- “with adults and with peers”
When we embed generalization criteria into our goals, it promotes the idea that generalization is a priority and a required part of our learner’s success.
To see some samples of generalization goals, visit our Executive Functioning IEP Goal Resource Hub
Celebrate Generalization Along the Way.
Lastly, sometimes executive functioning skills do respond to natural contingencies and a learner does generalize to a new setting or new materials without specific planning. In this case, it’s important to recognize and positively reinforce that skill. Point it out: “You did that without being asked!” or “_______ happened and we didn’t have to practice it first!” Let learners know and reward situations where generalization happens through natural-environment learning. The more often this behavior is rewarded, the more likely generalization will occur over time.
Additional Tips and Common Mistakes
While the six steps above will significantly improve your learner’s likelihood of generalizing a skill, they aren’t perfect solutions. There are a few other tips and strategies (and things to avoid!) that can make programming for generalization easier. Check out these bonus notes:
Additional Tips for Success in Generalization
- Get everyone’s buy-in to prioritize generalization. We have a tendency when working with neurodivergent individuals to emphasize sameness and consistency. While that’s important, sometimes failure to generalize happens because the adults, peers, or care providers get in the way of promoting it. Early on in the process, seek buy-in and collaboration from others to prioritize and plan for generalization of the EF skill.
- Watch for patterns in generalization. Neurodivergent learners who struggle with generalization often get stuck in similar ways—but those ways might be different from your other learners. It’s important to watch for patterns when generalization fails and to create an individualized plan to support each learner where they struggle.
- Record data. One of the only ways you’ll know if generalization is happening is if you observe it. And then we recommend recording data to track progress over time. Before you begin targeting an executive functioning skill, have a data-collection system in place that will measure generalization.
- Have a plan for each of the steps above before you start teaching. Promoting generalization requires intentional planning. By taking a few moments to consider generalization, the teaching you do will be more valuable and effective for your learner in the long run.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Mistake #1 — Giving Up Too Early — It’s likely that as you continue to work on generalizing executive functioning skills with your learner in new settings, at some point you will encounter a challenge and progress slows. Treat failures as learning opportunities—not a reason to give up and move on to something else.
- Mistake #2 — Not Asking the Learner About New Scenarios — Sometimes we go through all the work of planning for generalization, only to find that the learner can tell us what they find most difficult in new settings or scenarios. If your neurodivergent learner has mastered the language and self-monitoring skills to communicate about trying new things in new environments, consider including them in the planning process.
- Mistake #3 — Not Asking for Help — Not every professional encounters generalization in their educational training, and it’s certainly not in most parenting manuals. If you’re new to promoting generalization, seek out support from a colleague, coach, or continuing-education resource.
Additional Resources and Tools
Life Skills Advocate uses generalization strategies with coaching clients of all ages to help executive functioning skills transfer to a variety of real-life situations. Because of that, we’ve assembled some additional tools and resources you may find helpful in programming for generalization with your own clients, students, employees, or family members:
- The Real Life Executive Functioning Workbook (coupon code LSA20 for 20 % off)
- How to Embedding EF skills into Classroom Routines
- For a list of IEP goals that program for generalization see Executive Functioning IEP Goal Resource Hub
- Need 1-on-1 support? Explore our Executive Functioning Coaching programs.
In Summary
Generalization of skills is a familiar struggle for parents, teachers, coaches, and neurodivergent learners themselves. Understanding the concept of “failure to generalize” and—more importantly—having a practical roadmap for overcoming it is key to success. By emphasizing intentional planning, varied instruction, and goals that prioritize generalization, we can bridge the gap between formal instruction and everyday life.
TL;DR – (Too Long, Didn’t Read)
- Neurodivergent learners often struggle to generalize executive functioning skills beyond specific contexts.
- Intentional planning matters: vary instructions, choose portable materials, contrive diverse practice opportunities, set generalization-focused goals, and celebrate natural wins.
- Watch for patterns, collect data, and involve the learner in identifying challenging scenarios.
- For milestones across the lifespan, see our Executive Functioning Skills by Age Guide.
Further Reading
- ASD Roadmap – Train and Hope
- Brown & Bebko (2012) – Generalization, overselectivity, and discrimination in the autism phenotype: A review
- Life Skills Advocate – The Real Life Executive Functioning Workbook (coupon code LSA20 for 20 % off)
- Life Skills Advocate – How to Embedding EF skills into Classroom Routines
- Life Skills Advocate – Executive Functioning IEP Goal Resource Hub
- Life Skills Advocate – Executive Functioning Coaching
- May Institute – Generalization