Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Executive function book recommendations?

I read all three of those books looking for help for D15. She was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning disability a couple of years ago, and is an organizational disaster much of the time... Honestly, though, I felt like those books were focused on helping someone who COULD organize and just didn't do the right things. D is really not able to access that part of her brain, IMHO. I did not really take anything from those books that we used.

By the way, my dd came home yesterday with all of her homework, her violin, her coat, boots, and shoes. She had turned everything in, gone over a draft of a poster with her math teacher, remembered that she needed $5 for a special event, oh, and her math test was Thursday. My kid?

Not only did she remember everything, but she did her homework before her music lesson. When we got home, she played outside. Dinner was leisurely and I realized that I actually had some free time. DD asked to watch part of a movie because she had so much extra time before bed. It was really weird.

A couple things changed this weekend that may have helped:

- a new, huge binder that zips closed and fits all her workbooks and assignments that she organized and labeled herself. It also has a shoulder strap and she can carry it from class to class like the older girls.

- laminated note cards on a ring that list her daily schedule and what she needs to bring home after school (her daily schedule is a crazy mix of 4th, independent study, and higher math in a school on a 6 day rotating calendar...)

All fingers are crossed for a repeat performance this afternoon! (I still have those books on reserve at the library...)

Wow, Chrys, that should be on the Ultimate Brag thread! Go your DD! And even if she can't pull it off every day yet, at least she got the experience of how nice it was when she did manage it.

Here's another related book that we have found works really well when hot-housing other executive skills (especially for kids that struggle to maintain beyond-age-appropriate organizational skills):


The Organized Student, by Donna Goldberg.


I've also found that there is a freebie downloadable desktop widget that is a variable timer that automatically resets and just makes a "chime" at regular intervals. There's another one that can be set for times longer than ten minutes that opens a desktop window to ergonomic stretching, which is also useful for anyone that uses the computer for long periods of time.

Both are useful for DD in terms of self-regulation. Like a lot of adolescents, she's adversarial if WE gently 'alert' and ask for her to use meta-cognition to self-regulate her behavior (ie-- "DD? What are you doing right now?" Meaning-- are you daydreaming? Or on-task?) Instead, now her laptop alerts her every twenty minutes to pay attention to what she is doing. This should help her to become more aware of her time-management skills, too.

Hope that helps someone else!