Something Mich said in another thread made me wonder about this. I actually think DS7's executive function skills (organisation, staying on task, etc. etc.) are at least average for a 7yo, but of course they are far behind average for a child doing some of the work he's doing, and occasionally this is a problem for him. I'm wondering whether it would be possible and useful to "hothouse" his executive function a bit using ideas from any of these books, just to let his life go a bit more smoothly. Has anyone considered or done this, or does anyone who's used any of these books an opinion on which might be useful for this purpose (and, preferably, not too patronising)? Some I've looked at on Amazon are:

- No mind left behind
- Smart but scattered
- Late lost and unprepared

Example situation: DS recently wasted an entire maths session in class because he couldn't work out which question he'd got to. The details don't matter; I find it hard to believe even now but he was obviously sincere! The root cause was that he expected to have working on a piece of paper where there was none because he'd done the question in his head. He asked the teacher but she couldn't/wouldn't help, and by the time he'd worked it out the maths time was over. (I don't know how long it was, could have been 10 mins or 40.) Of course, in that specific case, once we talked about it it was easy for him to decide on a scheme to make sure that specific problem doesn't happen again, but it's indicative - he's doing different work from the others in the class in a situation where no help is available, and although he generally manages splendidly, it's tough.

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