What is Executive Function? | Neurodivergent vs Neurotypical Brains

Discover what executive function and executive dysfunction is, and who executive dysfunction affects. (Hint: It’s about Neurodivergent vs Neurotypical.)
What is executive function? It’s a cognitive process that has absolutely NOTHING to do with intellectual ability and, when dysfunctional, can result in procrastination, anxiety, depression, the appearance of “laziness,” and other mental health problems. You’re NOT lazy. If you have executive dysfunction adhd, executive dysfunction autism, or neurodivergent executive dysfunction, you’re just neurospicy. There’s NOTHING wrong with you. It’s time to work with your brain instead of against it. 💖
00:00 Start
00:33 What is Executive Function / Executive Dysfunction?
03:06 Time Management
03:18 Behavioral Initiation
04:13 Prioritization and Planning
04:51 Tangent about meeting your needs and caring for yourself
06:06 Organization
06:20 Response Inhibition
06:44 Working Memory
10:07 Sustained Attention
10:18 Metacognition
12:02 Goal Directed Persistence
12:13 Flexibility
12:32 Emotional Self Control
16:54 Who struggles with Executive Dysfunction?
18:34 Who am I to be talking about Executive Dysfunction?
Citations:
*[1] Regan, Theresa . Understanding Autism in Adults and Aging Adults 2nd Edition: Updated in 2021 with New Insights for Improving Diagnosis and Quality of Life (The Understanding Autism Series) (Ch. 4). IndieGo Publishing LLC. Kindle Edition. amzn.to/3cTNHEC
[2] How To ADHD, “What is Executive Function and Why Do We Need it?” • What is Executive Func...
[3] Child Mind Institute, “ADHD and Executive Function - Dr. Russell Barkley” • ADHD and Executive Fun...
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[@CassieWinter]

Which element of Executive Function were you most surprised to learn about?

[@jesusmaryandjoseph1]

So far, that it has nothing to do with intellectual ability.

[@imtheeternalscholar]

My youngest was diagnosed with autism and adhd. They automatically contacted me and announced they “got it from me”!!! At first I was offended. Growing up in a family who called people with Autism retarded made me flash back to crueller times when name calling was directed at me. I now understand better than that. Hours of research, (I mean months!) made me realise that they were right to assume that I had passed it on to them! Many online tests both for adhd and autism put me right in the spectrum! It explained a lot! I finally understood my life long struggle! I always thought I was defective, broken or, as I heard so much growing up, retarded! But I am free of that disgusting labeling now and can finally make peace with who I really am. I’m just the same as many others who are like me. Happily colourfully neurodivergent!! I’m free to be me!!!😊👍

[@insertcreativenamehere7970]

As a mental health professional and an adult who learned in the past year that they have ADHD, I really appreciate this video. I am going to save this to a playlist so I can share this with clients :)

[@CassieWinter]

Nice to meet you! I'm so glad you like the video enough to share it. Thank you. 💖

[@foxiefair123]

I wish the general public was more informed about this, because it’s literally a brain disorder and not a character defect. People who don’t get it like to judge you and your competency by your ability to do these things well.

[@kayleawilson]

Your voice is very nice to listen to. It helps that what you’re saying is also nice to listen to 😁

[@CassieWinter]

Aww schucks. Thanks! 💖

[@anonymousperson4214]

Thanks for noticing the yikes with the emotional regulation quote and addressing the issue. I am autistic, and it was indeed Problematic, so thanks for making that Very Clear all along 💜 The best way I can describe it from my experience is that it's kind of like working with an evil computer. Sometimes when you copy a lot of files, the fan runs loud but it works. And sometimes the fiend machine goes up to 100%cpu usage and gets stuck in the middle of the task and won't respond to anything because it's overloaded. So basically, sometimes I have the capacity to handle the type and degree of emotion I just had, and sometimes it overwhelms the system and screws everything up. Unsurprisingly, what else I have going on at the time is a huge factor in this, and in how screwed up I am (can I open task manager and kill the offending program, or is it full on Blue Screen of Death?). And like a computer, it will continue to run badly until you completely shut it down for a while (aquire sufficient rest). I hope that rambling explanation helps at all :)

[@CassieWinter]

I love that analogy! Thank you for sharing. 💖

[@graciegiggs3063]

Neuro Spicy, I loved that. 💛

[@possibleproblem479]

i grew up under a roof that made me feel like i was lazy, incompetent, and remarkably stupid. trying to get help was seen as weakness or an excuse to get out of something. i was pretty much the hypochondriac of the family; nothing i complained about was real and any attempt to ask for help at school was met with laughter and punishment for lying by my parents. even something as stupid as color blindness i was yelled at and punished for. my stepmom homeschooled me in 3rd to 6th grade in an attempt to stop any kind of professional to be involved in my education so that she wouldn't have to pay for programs or medication if i were to be diagnosed with anything. the only reason i was eventually enrolled in public school was because my dad realized what was going on and cut my stepmom out of it. i effectively learned nothing in that time and was still doing 2nd grade curricula in 6th grade. i would still get in a massive amount of trouble if the teacher were to bring anything up to my parents about possible behavioral and learning problems regardless if i said anything to anyone. they literally told me "you're just acting stupid to get out of your classes but im not falling for it." long story short it wasn't until i moved down to my biological mothers house in sophomore year that i actually received any help. i was incredibly reluctant to talk to anyone about it still because i truly believed i was just super unintelligent and lazy and thought i would be wasting peoples time by doing so. my mom however decided to schedule an evaluation with a psychiatrist which i agreed to go to. i was diagnosed with severe adhd and executive dysfunction and prescribed meds which helped tremendously. however it was too late, the damage was already done. i was so far behind in school, not even high school level, that it was unlikely that i would be able to graduate before i was too old to attend high school. so i dropped out and went for a ged instead which ive had no luck with. ive had two part time jobs but neither of them lasted long, im still living with my mom at 19 years old, and i can't help but feel like my life is over.

[@Phoenixwbh]

hi oh just want to say that one i’m really sorry you are dealing with this which may make what i’m going to say next sound really awful and backhanded but all my life i’ve heard remarks from others basically telling me “well your not the only person with your negative experiences” but this is the first time i’ve heard a story this similar to my own (i hope things are going better btw!!) growing up i had many different teachers and school faculty (i moved around a lot and went to many different schools) contact my parents and tell them that i showed signs of neurodivergence and instead them acknowledging this and seeking help i was just punished more harshly i was made to test into an all honors school so that the negative remarks regarding my intellect would just feel all the more confusing and as i got older my grades slipped my father passed away and my grades would worsen further but id still scrape by without failing only to graduate high school and my mom would pass barely 2 months later, im 22 now and i can’t save money, i can’t hold down jobs for longer than a few months at a time and im running on fumes trying to convince myself that my life is somehow still worth living

[@Hi_Im_Akward]

My emotional self control with intense emotions is either over control or under control. I either don't react and heavily mask or shut down, or I have a meltdown, and at times I know something will cause issues and try to control it which is where rigidity can come from. My experience with emotional control in this context is that sometimes the environment is overwhelming so it's difficult for my brain to deal with both the emotional responses and the over stimulation. Other times, it might not necessarily be an environmental thing. It could be completely calm and quiet, but having to talk to someone about hard things will cause me to shut down, cry, have trouble speaking etc. The emotions and situation itself is overwhelming and the internal dialog is the source of it. I often need a lot of time and space to process things, like big changes or bad news. It might actually tie in closely with the other executive dysfunction criteria, making decisions, committing to something, and probably my mind trying to continue to mask but being aware the mask if crumbling. Usually my internal dialog is somewhat trying to be logical. Take things from all sides, putting myself in their shoes, considering the consequences of speaking my mind vs being tactful, what is even a tactful thing to say etc. While simultaneously my emotions are roaring up and I am not great at recognizing and naming my emotions when they first arise. I can recognize emotions in myself but often it's difficult without first processing them. They are still happening in real time so all this noise of reasoning is going on in my head while a difficult emotion like anger comes up and I have physical responses, and an initial reactionary thought or response, like wanting to cry or physically act out. So I'm reasoning, trying to hold myself back from a reaction to an emotion I don't understand yet, while simultaneously trying to keep the mask on, keep calm and act like a grown up. So yeah I'm overwhelmed and over stimulated by this torrent of brain activity and it all just becomes noise. So my reaction is to cry or shut down.

[@awhoulaba]

Same 🫠

[@writingdee]

Yep, a little bit of everything… I’ll be your friend! Now that I finally got a diagnosis - clarity, I’ve been doing too much self care and self reflection, and I’m relearning how to initiate tasks. This info really helped me, as I love to identify and categorize everything I do (and don’t do.) Thank you for this!!! 💕

[@sambbbb]

There is a lot of talk about emotional dysregulation being added to the ADHD criteria in the next DSM, but I have no hope that they'll manage to accurately portray any of the neurodivergencies in the next ten years. I have severe dysregulation problems and in many situations I manage to stay much calmer than people around me - it's only a problem to NTs because of *when* we dysregulate and how it visibly appears to them. It's similar in concept to the ASD double-empathy problem, where the 'problem' is attributed to us despite it going both ways. Good video. I get frustrated with people sometimes referring to executive functions solely as productivity abilities. I also really appreciate your statements that you are still learning about ASD and open to corrections :) I think that's the attitude we should all have!

[@steggopotamus]

Huh, my metacognition for my own mental health is pretty good. I journal a lot and have built up a habit where if i have biiig feelings I journal, and I pretty regularly flip through it to review my progress. Everything else needs tons of work. Edit: could you also keep the section title up while talking about it? I forgot what we were talking about while talking about it. I ended up keeping the chapter titles up to help.

[@christianemichelberger8245]

I'd offer that the ability to pause after experiencing an emotion and before expressing itself in a volatile way is impaired in most people, looking at what's going on in the world and on social media. Being autistic myself, to me it is already difficult to identify an emotion. Even if something feels very intense, that doesn't mean I know which feeling I'm experiencing. A shutdown in my world happens when I've had more sensory input than my hard disk can handle. It crashes, thinking is no longer possible, and I need to retreat on the spot to let it defragment and return to full function. A shutdown doesn't necessarily have to do with emotions though, going shopping can already be enough in this loud world. I rarely shut down because of feelings.

[@CassieWinter]

Thank you for sharing 💖

[@catherinemunson555]

Another great one. I am glad you emphasized at the end that executive dysfunction is not specific to one diagnosis, just like sleepiness does not mean someone has sleep apnea. I think much of my “behavioral initiation” problems is a combination of how my brain has always worked and trauma related factors. I do much better with external structure, but my health doesn’t really allow for a job or school now.

[@ashleykennedy2824]

I'm a homeschooling sahm and the natural daily circadian rhythms ended up being great external structure for me. I got the idea from a book called Change Your Schedule Change Your Life.

[@amynoel7060]

To help me with my working memory at my job, (that I have during the day), I use a recorder that people who make stuffed animals used. It's a 20 second recorder that allows you to record and replay 20 seconds of information at a time. I got it off of Amazon.

[@CassieWinter]

Love this! Thanks for sharing 💖

[@CakeItBy]

Me watching this video forgetting what ur saying as ur saying it, then u bring up working memory. Oh my God 😂😢

[@CassieWinter]

🤣🤣🤣

[@lenberry6721]

Bookmark 8:00

[@aprildawnsunshine4326]

Yeah they definitely didn't do the emotional regulation part justice imo. Here's where what I've learned has landed me on that, especially with relation to my kids school experiences: it's the ability to recognize the building overwhelming feelings Before they get bad enough to cause a meltdown and then taking action to prevent it as much as possible or more accurately to not let it harm you or others around you. For a 9yo this would look like raising a hand and immediately saying "I'm upset" or "I need help" and also having a spot in the room to go to and have the quiet cry or whatever or ideally having a second person in the classroom who can support a child during a difficult moment while the other continues teaching. For a teenager it'd be more independent so maybe putting on noise cancelling headphones or sunglasses to reduce stimulation or stepping outside of class and going to a safe space or calling a safe person. For myself it's usually having a handful of people to reach out to that have varied schedules so there's almost always someone who isn't busy (working on rebuilding this myself) finding immediate coping skills like helpful distraction (videos like this often are, so sorry for the comment tsunami 😜) and being okay with it if I have to take my to-do for the day and just put it away because there's nothing so important it outranks my ability to continue to believe my life is worth living and not blowing up my relationships by having a meltdown is part of that. Also there's reminding myself that the brain is plastic and I can and am changing my ruts and just like with physical plastic I've got to undergo heat and pressure (hard work) to change it and some types are easy while others I need help, from friends or equipment or chemicals (meds, herbs, mushrooms, ect, tms, CBT, dbt, you get the idea) and sometimes it's just more effective to work around it than change it. And btw, the building of habits is one of the best ways to do this so you're already doing it and helping all of us do it too 💜🥄💜

[@Songsthesecond]

I can’t take a shower I can’t do anything I don’t even brush my teeth or hair

[@CassieWinter]

No matter where you're starting, there's a way through. If you haven't already, I highly recommend my Butt In Chair Time Masterclass, which you can access for free by signing up at my website: www.accountabilitymuse.com/

[@kevkonk]

Too much in one video, needs chunking into several bits.