Customer Reviews

Executive Function in Education: From Theory to Practice

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This is an excellent, informative book on executive function, which is often a lot of the problem with students further on the spectrum and who are mainstreamed in school. It explains things I haven't really understood previously about executive function problems that my son deals with -- why he doesn't get started on a project, why he doesn't continue through a project and finish it to the end. Various authors contributed to this book, and so you get a psychological, physical, and educational perspective that is necessary for understanding the situation, and some very good tools to help. Also of benefit is a full explanation of the battery of tests that are used to figure out if a student has executive function problems.

I took the book with me to our son's IEP this year, and used it quite a bit to help our son's teachers understand what might be issues in the coming year.

As a child psychologist who works primarily with foster and adopted children, I use this book quite frequently as a resource. I also recommend it to parents who have children with learning disorders, cognitive problems, or just a tough time being in school.

It's an edited book, so one advantage is that the reader gets various perspectives on helping children with executive delays and challenges. The first part of the book is more clinical, however, which means most parents will derive the greatest benefit from the last 6 chapters.

Collectively, the authors do a nice job of helping the reader to understand what the child's experience is like. This helps broaden empathy on the part of teachers and parents alike, as too often, everyone spends too much time being mad at or frustrated with the child.

I hope the book is selling well, as it is a good resource; in fact, it is one of the better books I've come across in this classification. I'd like to see it as required reading for special education teachers and in classes for parents of special needs kids.

As a psychologist with 30 years experience, I have been focusing on issues of attention, memory and cognition, as it relates to self esteeme, performance, and the development of emotional difficulties. The text is more focused on school which is where we developed and where we met our most difficult challenges in performance. It is exciting to see that educators are doing more to help children who are between the special education criterion and the kids who don't have difficulty. It is also important to understand the process of learning so we can better teach to the student rather than the student learning how we teach! This book can help open the educators doors to higher learning.

The list of contributors for this book, edited by Lynn Meltzer, reads like a "Who's Who" in the field of executive function research. The study of executive functioning traces its history back to the field of head trauma. With the progress in neuro-imaging, more current research has been directed toward students who experience academic/behavioral difficulty. The authors in this book describe the advances as well as possible pitfalls (Chapter 4 by Kurt Fischer and Samantha Daley)in applying this area of research to education.

The sections of the book cover the theoretical and conceptual frameworks, the challenges and difficulties found in the identification and treatment of executive functioning, and finally, a section of recommended interventions The intervention section considers a schoolwide curriculum and a classroom strategy. Also, discussed are strategies for approaching executive deficits which might interfere with reading comprehension, writing and mathematics.

This book is highly recommended for parents, educators, psychologists, counselors and any individual involved in the academic, emotional, or cognitive development of young people. Most of the chapters are not light reading and may require time to digest.