Event Details
About the Event
Why are executive function skills important?
Executive function skills allow us to manage our attention, our emotions and our behavior in pursuit of our goals. Young children rely on these skills to follow a sequence of instructions for daily tasks. Older children and adults need these skills to “break a task down” into a sequence of steps and to organize a timeline as the demands for independent learning increase.
Who is this workshop for?
This series is for those who work or live with individuals with executive function challenges, including those affected by autism, ADHD and other neurodiverse conditions. Those who face these challenges personally are also welcomed as many of the strategies are not age specific. However, most of the examples will relate to school-age children.
Session Details
Part 1: July 29, 2021
Learn it Today, Use it Tomorrow!
Practical Interventions for Helping Students Develop Independent Executive Function Skills
This session will include fresh approaches to help students readily initiate tasks and develop automaticity for class routines and transitions. These skills are key to developing critical thinking and flexible problem-solving skills and support management of belongings while helping the student internalize a sense of the passage of time.
Part 2: August 5, 2021
Processing Speed and Executive Function
Executive function challenges, processing speed and behavior issues often go hand-in-hand. They can limit productivity by presenting difficulties in following instructions; finishing homework; taking notes and summarizing; writing assignments that require complex thoughts and transitioning between tasks.
In this session, the focus is on practical strategies for improving PS to increase the automaticity with which students can follow routines and directions, complete tasks and manage complex assignments. These can support students in developing executive control for the writing process, to improve initiation of writing tasks, to increase the quality and volume of their thought retrieval, to expand on their ideas and to use metacognition to evaluate the quality of their writing.
Part 3: August 12, 2021
From Intention to Implementation to Completion! Cool Tools to Truly Execute Tasks!
Sometimes we know what we want to achieve, and what we need to do to get there, but the challenge is to shift from intention to action. Strong executive function skills enable students and adults alike to: start and finish tasks; recall and follow multi-step directions; stay on track and balance priorities. Executive function skills operate on the basis of forethought and the ability to see and sense the passage of time. Beat procrastination, motivation and distraction challenges and learn cool planning and time tools to go from intention to action to completion!
Part 4: August 19, 2021
Situational Awareness
This session will demonstrate how to teach students to read the room, be situationally aware and utilize this situational intelligence for effective task execution. Many programs begin with goal setting. Instead, the 360Thinking program begins with situational awareness (SA) – the ability to “stop and read the room”. The features of SA include: spatial, temporal, object, and social information. When teaching students, we refer to the acronym 'S.T.O.P." - Space, Time, Objects & People. As ‘reading the room’ is a skill that happens in the blink of an eye (Vermeulen 2015), it is critical to teach students to transition from a ‘static’ SA to reading context in real time by guiding them from the “detail” level towards rapid, flexible, “big-picture” thinking.
About the Presenter
Sarah Ward has over 25 years of experience in diagnostic evaluations and treatment of executive dysfunction. Ms. Ward holds a faculty appointment at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions. She is an internationally recognized expert on executive function and presents seminars and workshops on the programs and strategies she has developed with the Co- Director of Cognitive Connections, Kristen Jacobsen. Their 360 Thinking Executive Function Program received the Innovative Promising Practices Award from the National Organization CHADD. She has presented to and consulted with over 1200 public and private schools in Massachusetts and across the United States and Canada.
Visit Sarah Ward’s website, Cognitive Connections, for more information about Executive Functioning - you will find many free resources.
Cost
| Date | Parents, Para-Pros & Students | Professionals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early Bird Rate ends | June 28, 2021 | $175 | $225 |
| Regular Rate ends | July 19, 2021 | $200 | $250 |
| Late Rate begins | July 20, 2021* | $225 | $275 |
*Last day to register is July 26
Bursaries
ACT provides bursary funds from our own resources and through support from private donors. Anyone attending an ACT event is eligible if the cost is a barrier for attending the event. Priority is given to B.C. residents, autistic adults and to parents and participants who are low income. Bursaries are provided as reduced event registration fees. Donate to our bursary fund.
Please note the bursary application deadline for this workshop has now passed. The online application portal closed July 5th at 4:30pm.
Autism Funding
If you wish to use your child’s Autism Funding to pay for your registration, ACT can invoice the Autism Funding Branch directly. You must contact the Autism Funding Branch for approval first.
For information on how to register with your Autism Funding, visit Workshop Registration Using Autism Funding.
Registration is now closed.
Autism-Specific? No
