Understanding Executive Functioning in Neurodivergent Students| Sue Larkey

Why “Won’t” Is Actually “Can’t”:

Rethinking Executive Functioning in Neurodivergent Students

Autistic Inertia Classroom Strategies

Strategies for Executive Functioning

Key takeaways from this podcast for educators and parents to understand Executive Functioning:

✅ Five-Minute Warning: In this episode I talked about giving students, particularly those with ADHD, a five minute warning before a transition, because that’s often where they do their best work and it gives them time to shift gears rather than being cut off abruptly.
✅ Tomorrow Box: I shared how offering a “tomorrow box” on a student’s table lets them defer an unfinished task to the next day without it counting as a failure today, which gives them an opt out they might not otherwise know they have.

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✅ Freshest Items to School: I explained that some students bring their favourite or newest items to school with them, because if they can’t see something, they can’t be sure it’s safe, which is an object permanence issue rather than attachment or carelessness.
✅ Dirty Clothes Left Out: I shared an idea I came across from Yenn Purkis, that some people avoid putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket because once it’s out of sight, they’re afraid they’ll forget about it, which explains why some students never revisit what’s been tidied into a locker or tote box.
✅ “Sally Can Do It” Trap: I talked about how we treat a child with exceptional executive functioning as the baseline and then judge everyone else against them, when the reality is Sally is the anomaly, not the standard.
✅ The Viral Lockdown Tweet: I asked Dean about where the course really began, and he told me a tweet claiming people who hadn’t achieved their goals in lockdown “lacked dedication” made him so angry he wrote the poem the course grew out of.
✅ “I’m Just About Managing” Messages: Dean told me that during lockdown, so many autistic adults said to him they were just about managing to feed themselves and get out of bed, and that any extra demand was too much, which is why the pressure to “build resilience” felt so wrong.
✅ No Equals Never Script: I explained that when I tell a student “no” outright, what they hear is “never,” so in the classroom I’ve learned to reframe it so the child understands the task is paused, not gone.
✅ Human Beings Not Human Doings: I shared a line a friend once said to Dean, that we are human beings not human doings, and how reassuring a student with that idea can shift the focus away from what they’ve achieved that day.
✅ Bob the Builder Framing: I talked about using “can we fix it, yes we can” with students, because it keeps executive functioning support hopeful and practical rather than framing a hard day as a doomsday.