Smart but Scattered!

Executive skills are sometimes called “the hidden curriculum.” They are skills such as sustained attention, working memory, planning, organization, and goal-directed persistence that are absolutely critical to school success, yet curriculum standards seldom if ever explicitly reference these skills. Neuroscientists now tell us that these skills take a minimum of 25 years to reach full maturation, and the course of that development is influenced by experience and exposure, by modeling, practice, and direct instruction. This full-day workshop will give participants a comprehensive overview of the Smart but Scattered model for understanding, assessing, and treating executive skill challenges.

Learning Goals: As a result of this workshop, participants will:

1. Be able to describe the brain processes involved in executive skill development both in typically developing children and those with executive dysfunction (such as ADHD).
2. Be able to identify how executive skills impact school performance and daily living.
3. Know a variety of formal and informal assessment strategies for evaluating executive skills.
4. Learn how to make environmental modifications to support weak executive skills.
5. Learn how to design protocols for teaching executive skills.

8:00am Sign-In, CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST PROVIDED

8:30 – 9:30 Overview of executive skills

• Self-assessment and discussion

• Introduction to the field and discussion executive skills within a developmental context

9:30 – 11:30 The “Smart but Scattered” Model

• Definitions of the 11 skills and presentation of an array of evidence-based strategies for each skill

11:30 – 12:00 Best practices in assessing executive skills

• Formal and informal methods, and strengths and weaknesses associated with each method

12:00-1:00pm LUNCH - Not Provided

1:00 – 3:30

• Three strategies to support students with executive skill challenges—environmental modifications, teaching the skill, the use of incentives to encourage practice, with case examples.

3:30-4:00pm Wrap Up

Dr. Peg Dawson

In over 40 years of clinical practice, Dr. Peg Dawson has worked with thousands of children and teens who struggle at home and in school. At the center of their struggles are often weak executive skills. Along with her colleague, Dr. Richard Guare, she has written numerous books on this topic for educators, mental health professionals, and parents, among them Smart but Scattered, Smart but Scattered Teens, Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, and Coaching Students with Executive Skills Challenges. Peg is also a past president of the National Association of School Psychologists, and the International School Psychology Association, and is a recipient of NASP’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Host or Publisher Northwestern Illinois Association