"The executive functions are a set of cognitive processes that are necessary for the cognitive control of behavior: selecting and successfully monitoring behaviors that facilitate the attainment of chosen goals."
The cognitive processes involved in planning, decision making, and problem solving.
Introduction to Executive Function: Understanding what Executive Function is, and how it impacts decision-making, planning, and organization.
Brain Anatomy and Function: A basic understanding of the structure and function of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex and its role in Executive Function.
Executive Function Assessment: An overview of common assessment tools used to evaluate Executive Functioning, such as the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF).
Executive Function and Age: The role of Executive Function in development and how it changes with age, including the effects of aging on Executive Function.
Executive Function and ADHD: The relationship between ADHD and Executive Function, and how Executive Functioning can be improved through ADHD treatment.
Executive Function and Autism: The relationship between Autism and Executive Function, and how Executive Functioning can be improved for individuals on the Autism spectrum.
Executive Function and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): The effects of TBI on Executive Function and strategies for rehabilitating Executive Function for individuals recovering from a TBI.
Executive Function and Learning Disabilities: The relationship between learning disabilities and Executive Function, and how Executive Functioning can be improved for individuals with learning disabilities.
Executive Function and Psychiatric Disorders: The relationship between psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety, and Executive Function, and how improving Executive Functioning can help with symptom management.
Executive Function and Neurodiversity: Understanding how Executive Functioning can vary across different individuals and how neurodiversity intersects with Executive Function.
Strategies for Improving Executive Function: Practical strategies for improving Executive Function in daily life, such as goal-setting, time-management, and organization techniques.
Executive Function and Stress: The relationship between stress and Executive Function, and how managing stress can improve Executive Functioning.
Executive Function and Creativity: The role of Executive Function in creativity and how an individual's Executive Functioning can impact their creative output.
Executive Function and Technology: The impact of technology on Executive Functioning and how to use technology to improve Executive Functioning.
Executive Function in the Workplace: The importance of Executive Functioning in the workplace and strategies for improving Executive Function skills for career success.
Inhibition: The ability to control inappropriate impulses, behaviors, and responses.
Working Memory: The ability to hold and manipulate information in mind for brief periods of time.
Shifting: The ability to switch attention between tasks or mental sets.
Planning/Organization: The ability to formulate and carry out a plan or set of steps.
Time Management: The ability to use time efficiently and effectively.
Self-Monitoring: The ability to evaluate and regulate one’s own behavior and performance.
Metacognition: The ability to reflect on and monitor one’s own thinking process.
Emotional Regulation: The ability to regulate and control one’s own emotions.
Initiative: The ability to initiate and start tasks independently.
Mental Flexibility: The ability to adapt and adjust one’s thinking and behavior to changing situations.
Response Inhibition: The ability to control automatic or impulsive reactions.
Intra- and Inter- Hemispheric Coordination: The ability to coordinate and integrate information within and between the two hemispheres of the brain.
Goal-Setting: The ability to set and work towards achievable goals.
Decision Making: The ability to make sound decisions based on information available.
Attention and Focus: The ability to selectively attend to relevant information and sustain focus on a task.
Cognitive Control: The ability to flexibly and adaptively deploy cognitive resources to accomplish goals.
Problem Solving: The ability to identify and solve problems logically and systematically.
Mental Agility: The ability to learn quickly and work with new and different information effectively.
Verbal and Nonverbal Communication: The ability to communicate effectively using appropriate verbal and nonverbal cues.
Initiation: The ability to initiate and start tasks independently.
Planning: The ability to conceptualize, create, and execute a viable plan.
Response Selection: The ability to choose an appropriate response from among competing alternatives.
Verbal Fluency: The ability to produce words or sentences that are semantically or phonologically related.
Cognitive Flexibility/Task Switching: The ability to switch between multiple tasks or mental sets with minimal disruption.
Reasoning and Conceptualization: The ability to analyze and categorize information and ideas.
Visual-Spatial Processing: The ability to perceive, understand, and manipulate visual information in three dimensions.
Executive Attention: The ability to sustain attention, suppress distraction, and shift focus flexibly and efficiently.
Monitoring: The ability to monitor and detect errors and discrepancies in one's own performance and adjust behavior accordingly.
Inhibition Control: The ability to control impulses and resist temptation.
"Executive functions include basic cognitive processes such as attentional control, cognitive inhibition, inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility."
"Higher-order executive functions require the simultaneous use of multiple basic executive functions and include planning and fluid intelligence (e.g., reasoning and problem-solving)."
"Executive functions gradually develop and change across the lifespan of an individual and can be improved at any time over the course of a person's life."
"These cognitive processes can be adversely affected by a variety of events which affect an individual."
"Neuropsychological tests (e.g., the Stroop test) and rating scales (e.g., the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function) are used to measure executive functions."
"Cognitive control and stimulus control... compete over the control of an individual's elicited behaviors."
"Inhibitory control is necessary for overriding stimulus-driven behavioral responses (stimulus control of behavior)."
"The prefrontal cortex is necessary but not solely sufficient for executive functions; for example, the caudate nucleus and subthalamic nucleus also have a role in mediating inhibitory control."
"Cognitive control is impaired in addiction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and a number of other central nervous system disorders."
"Stimulus-driven behavioral responses that are associated with a particular rewarding stimulus tend to dominate one's behavior in an addiction." (Note: The remaining questions are extensions of the previous ones, so the same quotes can answer them as well.)