Full Course Description

Executive Function in the Classroom & Clinic

Teaching students how they think, learn, and behave empowers them to play an active role in their own learning. When children with ADHD, anxiety, learning differences, oppositional tendencies, and disinterest in school are taught how to be “Cognitive Scientists” coaching their own brains to plan, prioritize, attend, and remember, they become more invested in school and motivated to learn.

Taking the mystery out of executive functions by showing students how to learn more efficiently while calming their defensive brains leads to better concentration, improved attention, higher academic achievement, and competent social-emotional skills.

Lynne Kenney, Psy.D., pediatric psychologist, author, and international educator, will teach you how to integrate the newest research in neuroscience, kinesiology, and education for kids to learn more efficiently. You will discover over 30 developmentally progressive cognitive-exercises, worksheets, and activities to enliven your classroom. Learn how to improve cognition, enhance learning, and empower children to be better thinkers with motor movement, sequencing, attending, self-regulation, and memory activities.

Dress comfortably, as we will be moving to think and calming to learn by employing balls, body percussion, rhythm activities, yoga, and music.

Program Information

Objectives

Choose research-based activities educators, teachers, and school psychologists can use to improve thinking, self-regulation and behavior.
Examine the relationship between cognition and motor movement.
Utilize neurocognitive activities to bring physical activity back to the classroom.
Determine how students calm their defensive brains leading to better concentration, improved attention, and competent social-emotional skills.
Evaluate the integration of computer-based cognitive skills training and motor movement activities.
Use applied neuroscience research to enhance collaboration and cooperation in the classroom.

Outline

What You Need to Know about Movement and Cognition

Explore the new neuroscience of movement and cognition
Teach “Brain Lessons” to increase the efficacy of self-coaching executive function skills
Define & teach executive function skills to children
Embodied cognition – Learning is a whole-body experience
Bring daily physical activity into the classroom and clinic

Current Research on the Role of Movement in Learning

Physical activity improves health and academic achievement
Types of exercise that will enhance executive function
How to Implement a Movement Schedule
Using collaboration and student creativity to improve behavior
Limitations of the research and potential risks

ACTIVITIES, TOOLS, AND STRATEGIES

Alerting, Attending and Energizing

Disappearing Beats: Experience Attention & Memory in Action
We are Musical
Musical Entrainment
Foundational Movements
Measures are Magic!
Movimals
1 2 3 Action
CogniTap

Self-Regulation

The difference between self-regulation and self-control
Task demands and perceived stress
Stressor identification & arousal states
Slowing down for better cognitive control
- Entrainment and Synchrony
- Entrain me (Walk & Bounce with me)
- Co-Regulation – Swing, sway, sing
- The Music Carpet Ride
- Head, Shoulders, Hips & Knees
- Rhythm Ball
- 3, 5, 7, 9 For Calming in Time

Attention/Memory

The BIG 3 – Attention, working memory & self-control
- Cognitive Conversations
- Brain Lessons
- My Attention Engine
- My Memory Window
- Cat, Dog, Tree
- Slow & Quick Encoding and Retrieval
- Having a Ball!
- The Secret is The Sequence
- The Parts of the Task Game

Behavior

Anxiety, agitation and hopefulness
What to say, think and do when children are escalating
The power of self-talk
- Who’s Jelly Beans Am I Holding?
- The Purpose Circle
- What’s In It For Me?
- Anger Mountain
- My Anger Manager
- I’ll Give This 10

Target Audience

Educators
Special Educators
Psychologists
School Psychologists
Counsellors
Social Workers
Occupational Therapists
Speech-Language Pathologists
Other Helping Professionals
Art Therapists

Copyright : 03/27/2026

Executive Functioning in Children and Adolescents

A fresh lens on behavior
20+ concrete, ready-to-use strategies
Tools to advocate, explain, and collaborate

Meltdowns, shutdowns, resistance, and “defiance” often mask what’s really happening in the brain – executive function overload.

For kids with ADHD or Autism, their ability to plan, shift, and self-regulate collapses under stress, leaving adults unsure how to help.

This training bridges neuroscience and practice to give you concrete tools that promote emotional regulation, flexible thinking, and engagement – without relying on compliance charts or behavioral control.

Through real-world examples, clinical demonstrations, and interactive activities, Polina Shkadron will share strategies that build executive skills through language, movement, and emotional safety.

You’ll walk away with:

Sensory-motor and visual supports to strengthen working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility
Movement-based transition tools that prevent overwhelm and reduce resistance
Scripts and coaching prompts for caregivers and teachers to foster collaboration instead of control
Play-based activities that link self-awareness, planning, and emotional regulation
Templates for individualized executive function plans you can use immediately

Purchase now to discover how to use sensory anchors, regulation routines, and context-based supports that empower kids to access calm, connection, and competence across home, school, and therapy settings.

Program Information

Objectives

Identify how key executive functioning skills support participation in daily living and learning activities.
Examine the concept of whole-brain integration and its relevance to hierarchical brain organization in executive function development.
Analyze the interrelationship among executive functioning, cognition, language, and social-emotional development, emphasizing their impact on occupational performance.
Identify foundational neurological and regulatory capacities that underlie common challenges associated with Autism and ADHD.
Determine developmentally appropriate strategies to address executive functioning barriers across home, school, and community environments.
Appraise how relational and play-based interventions enhance executive function skills and higher-order processes in neurodivergent children and adolescents.

Outline

The Neuroscience of Executive Skills

Bruce Perry’s neurosequential model of therapeutics
Target the three EF pillars: working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility
Reduce stress and trauma-based shutdowns that block skill growth
Reframe “defiance” as overload and dysregulation – not willful misbehavior
What to say and not to say during nervous system overload
Limitations of the research and potential risks

Spark Skill Growth Through Language, Emotion & Play

Use play to assess planning, regulation, and flexible thinking
Link emotional safety to executive functioning development
Teach attention as a co-created process, not a demand
Shift language from behavior-based to neuro-affirming terms
Reflective take-home questions to foster caregiver insight

Support Neurodivergent Kids with Tailored Tools

Decode stress responses in ADHD and Autistic profiles
Ditch compliance charts – replace with curiosity and connection
Scaffold transitions using movement and sensory anchors
Pre-load kids with proactive EF strategies before demands hit
Say goodbye to one-size-fits-all – design individualized support systems

Coach Adults for Long-Term Change

Co-regulation and relationship-first strategies to replace “behavior plans”
Tips to help caregivers shift from control to collaboration
Scripts for schools and families to reduce shame and increase clarity
Practical caregiver coaching tools to close the home-therapy gap
Case studies: EF progress through play and connection

Target Audience

Counsellors
Social Workers
Educators
Psychologists
Occupational Therapists
Occupational Therapy Assistants
Speech-Language Pathologists
Marriage & Family Therapists
Physicians

Smart but Scattered: Effective Executive Functioning Strategies to Empower Children to Thrive Emotionally, Socially, and Academically

Children who have deficient executive skills often have trouble getting started on tasks, get distracted easily, lose papers or assignments and forget to hand in homework. They make careless mistakes, put off work until the last minute and have no sense of time urgency. Workspaces are disorganized and teachers often refer to their backpacks or lockers as “black holes.” Often considered chronic underachievers, these children are at risk for academic failure as well as emotional and behavioral difficulties.

Dr. Dawson, co-author of the best-selling books Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, 3rd Ed. (2018), Smart but Scattered (Guilford, 2009) and Smart but Scattered Teens (2013, Guilford) uses case examples along with interactive discussion to demonstrate how the executive skills manifest in daily home and school activities. Learn how to assess these skills and take home evidence-based strategies to help children and adolescents overcome executive skills weaknesses.

Leave this seminar with a set of tools that includes strategies for task/environmental modifications, skill development through cognitive/behavioral techniques and creation of incentive systems. You will be able to give teachers and parents a means for developing and improving the following:

Organization
Time management
Impulse control
Goal-directed persistence
Executive skills critical for independent functioning

Program Information

Objectives

Assess the relationship between the executive skills and brain development/function in relation to assessment and treatment planning.
Propose strategies to accommodate and strengthen weak planning and organizational skill, to improve client level of functioning.
Appraise assessment tools used to identify deficits in executive functioning to better inform your choice of treatment interventions.
Determine how executive skills impact performance and activities of daily living at home and school for the purpose of client psychoeducation.
Utilize environmental modification strategies to support deficits in executive skills thus improving treatment outcomes.
Implement strategies that transition children from being externally prompted to internally regulated.

Outline

Executive Skills

Underlying theory
Executive skills in the context of brain function and child development

Assessment of Executive Skills

Parent/teacher/student interviews
Behavior rating scales
Observations
Informal assessment
Formal assessment

Intervention Strategies

Environmental modifications to reduce the impact of weak executive skills
Teaching strategies to help children develop/improve executive functioning
Using incentives to help practice or use skills that are difficult

Keys to Effective Intervention Design

Match the child’s developmental level
Use the child’s innate drive for mastery and control
Begin with environmental modifications
Effortful tasks and ways to make them less difficult
Use incentives to augment instruction
Provide the minimum support necessary
Apply supports and interventions until the child achieves mastery or success
Gradually fade supports, supervision and incentives

Limitations of the Research and Potential Risks

Limited empirical evidence for the approach
Approach integrates evidence-based practices such as ABA and RTI
No “one size fits all” for any treatment modality

Target Audience

Counsellors
Social Workers
Psychologists
Psychotherapists
Therapists
Marriage and Family Therapists
Speech-Language Pathologists
Teachers
School Guidance Counsellors
Case Managers
Nurses
School Administrators
Educational Paraprofessionals
Occupational Therapists
Occupational Therapy Assistants
Other Helping Professionals Who Work with Children