It’s not uncommon for parents and special education professionals to struggle with what skills to teach and in what order to teach them. This struggle applies to executive functioning skills, which are so closely tied to academic and vocational skills (as well as linked to challenging behavior when difficulties arise). It can be challenging to know when the best time to start working on planning skills is.
For individuals with diverse learning needs, the key is to start early. As mentioned in earlier discussions about planning, these skills change and evolve. Your child or student might adopt some executive functioning skills quickly. Others may take years of practice to develop or may require
But what about the child who may need long-term support?
The executive functioning profiles of individuals with unique learning needs indicate a wide range of skill development. Some individuals show advanced executive functioning skills, but a limited motivation to demonstrate them in a home or vocational setting. Other individuals show challenges with complex planning tasks or understanding problem-solving type tasks involved in executive functioning skills. While evidence supports that all individuals can make progress towards achieving executive functioning goals, some individuals may need additional strategies and support to sustain success.
What do those interventions look like?
How can parents and teachers develop and implement tools to help planning skills be more effective?
How do you break down planning skills into smaller components and teach more successfully?
If these are some of the questions you have as a parent or professional, check out these additional resources to develop planning skills in individuals who may need long-term support:
Long-Term Supports & Strategies for Diverse Learners
Break the skill into components and teach as many steps as you can.
For some teens and young adults, it may take months or even years to teach specific planning skills. Some may require support to complete daily living or vocational skills for some time. But instead of looking at those skills as too difficult to approach as a whole, consider the different steps. Is it not better for your child to accomplish some of the steps on their own, even if they need help or modifications with other responses?
Consider the skill of weekly meal planning. The executive functioning required to complete a full, nutritious weekly meal plan might be beyond your child now, but what steps can they learn to complete? Perhaps you can use a visual ‘recipe box’ for them to select recipes from to start, and then have assistance with identifying and purchasing ingredients. Maybe a full week feels daunting right now. Start with planning one meal of the day or planning only breakfasts for the week.
By breaking the skill into smaller parts and teaching as many steps as you can, you’re building as much independence as possible. Even if your child may require help or assistance with some of the steps, some progress is better than not making any progress forward.
Here are some sample task-analysis steps and sample goals for an adult with unique learning needs for meal planning:
Treat daily routines as a time to teach executive functioning skills.
One strategy that families find especially helpful when teaching executive functioning skills is to build them into daily routines. Every activity presents opportunities to work on skills like planning, organization, and working memory. The more learning opportunities and practice an individual has, the better the chance they’ll continue to make progress over time.
It can also be helpful to record progress over time with weekly and monthly charting and check-ins. After establishing a SMART goal for teaching planning skills, record how much support your child needed each opportunity you work on the task. Over time, evaluate the need for ongoing support for each step in the daily routine and how to achieve more independence in challenging areas.
For weekly goal tracking sheets, download our weekly progress tracking forms:
Use planning worksheets and visuals.
Many of us use tools and visuals supports to help us stay on track with planning. Checklists, to-do lists, daily agendas, end-of-the-day reminder sheets, calendars, and self-evaluation ratings can all be useful tools for success. Rather than treat these items as treatment or interventions to help with skill acquisition, for some individuals, you may need to build worksheets and visuals into the daily routine as ongoing support.
While we may want our teen or young adult to ‘just know’ how to be planful and prepare for the next day’s activities independently, a more realistic strategy might be to use an end-of-the-day reminder list. Independence with an activity, even if it’s aided with an intervention tool like a reminder list, should be viewed as better than your child needing assistance from someone else without using an intervention tool.
To see a sample end-of-the-day reminder sheet, download our sample planning worksheet .pdf
Look for ways to generalize planning skills.
Another helpful strategy to grow your child’s planning skills over time is to start in one area and then generalize to other areas. Generalization refers to demonstrating a skill or behavior in different settings, at different times, or with different people. Rather than learning every single skill one-by-one, humans ‘generalize’ the things we learn to new scenarios and situations. Generalization can be a helpful tool for expanding executive functioning skills like planning.
For example, if worksheets and visuals worked well in one area (like meal planning), then use that success to build another skill area. Try worksheets and visuals for event planning or for planning house chores. If a timer or smartphone reminder works well to help your child plan one area, generalize that success to another essential skill that might also need reminders. Build on what you know works well.
Develop a care coordination schedule.
For children who need additional support with planning skills across the lifespan, care coordination doesn’t end with an IEP or transition plan. There are still services available to continue working on your family’s goals. Successful transitions to adulthood include a variety of different community agencies, service providers, vocational coaches, and social services who all need to work together. Develop a schedule of weekly, monthly, or bi-monthly coordination with your child’s other care providers. Make sure each meeting includes a discussion about current goals, what’s working, and what needs to adjust for progress in the future.
Further Reading
- Life Skills Advocate Blog – 7 Great Questions Actually Worth Asking at IEP Meetings
- Life Skills Advocate Blog – The Connection Between Executive Functioning & Challenging Behavior
- May Institute – Generalization
- Rodrigues AR, Santos S, Rodrigues A, Estevens M, Sousa E (2019) Executive profile of adults with intellectual disability and psychomotor intervention’ effects on executive functioning. Physiother Res Rep 2: DOI: 10.15761/PRR.1000122
- Vanderbilt University – Preparing Students with Disabilities for School-to-Work Transition and Postschool Life.