The Executive Functions Wheel- Assessing Executive Function
This tool is designed to help you (or your teen) explore what the executive functions are and how they are showing up in the world. Knowing where we are at is the starting place in getting to where we want to be.
How to Use This Tool
1. Look at the wheel— It shows different executive function skills that influence how we think, act, and feel.
2. Rate each skill— On a scale from 1 to 10, 1 being “this is a big challenge for me/my child” and 10 being “I feel great about how this is going/strong in this area,” rate how you feel about this skill right now.
3. Reflect— Once your ratings are filled in, you’ll see which areas you feel most confident in and which might need more support or strategies.
Executive functions are the brain’s management system—they help us plan, focus, remember, organize, and manage our emotions and actions. Everyone has strengths and struggles in their executive functions and these skills are not stagnant for any individual. One of the crucial steps in developing our executive functioning skills is to increase the awareness of what the executive functions are and how they show up. This exercise is meant to help parents, teens, and teachers think deeply about executive functions in order to build the individual skills necessary for a student to thrive in school and life.