Are You Sure You’re Equipped to Be a Skilled Executive Function Coach?!

(The video at the top of this post features a conversation with executive function coach Crista Hopp.)

Why Every Student Needs an Executive Function Coach (Even If They Don’t Have a Diagnosis!)

If you’re an educator, tutor, or academic coach, chances are you’ve worked with students who struggle with time management, organization, or follow-through. Maybe they can’t seem to remember homework deadlines, or they stare blankly at a test question even though they swear they studied. What’s going on?

More often than not, these are executive function challenges—and they affect far more students than most people realize, whether or not those students have a formal diagnosis like ADHD.

Recently, I had a rich conversation with Crista Hopp, an experienced executive function coach. You can watch the full conversation in the video above, but here I want to slow things down and unpack some of the key ideas that tend to matter most for educators, coaches, and anyone working with neurodiverse learners.

The Hidden Struggles of Executive Function

Many students who struggle with executive functioning never receive a diagnosis. That doesn’t mean they don’t need support—it just means their challenges are easier to overlook.

Executive function skills—planning, prioritization, working memory, task initiation, emotional regulation—are the backbone of effective learning. When those systems are shaky, even bright, motivated students can flounder. They may look unmotivated or careless from the outside, when in reality they’re overwhelmed and under-supported.

Crista shared that her work grew out of noticing this exact gap. In research settings and real-life practice, she kept seeing students who were clearly struggling with executive function but weren’t receiving a diagnosis—and therefore weren’t receiving help. As she put it, she wanted there to be a resource for kids who were struggling without requiring families to pursue a label just to access support.

This is one of the reasons executive function coaching plays such an important role alongside traditional education. Schools are tasked with teaching content—math, science, history—but they rarely have the time or structure to explicitly teach students how to learn. How to plan. How to break down a long-term assignment. How to study in a way that actually works.

That’s where executive function coaches step in.

Why Study Skills Matter More Than Ever

Let’s be honest: most students are never explicitly taught how to study.

They reread notes passively.
They highlight entire chapters.
They cram the night before an exam and hope for the best.

A well-trained executive function coach understands that study skills are not intuitive—and that they need to be grounded in cognitive science, not guesswork. Teaching students how learning actually works changes everything. When students understand how to encode, retrieve, and apply information, their effort finally starts to pay off.

These skills aren’t just for students who are struggling. High-achieving students benefit too. Strong executive function habits reduce stress, improve academic performance, and build confidence. Students stop feeling like success is a mystery and start seeing patterns they can rely on.

Training Matters: What Makes a Great Executive Function Coach?

Not all executive function coaching is created equal.

Being good at school is not the same thing as being good at coaching. Strong executive function coaches understand the learning science behind behavior, motivation, and habit-building. They know how to scaffold skills without creating dependence. They focus on systems, not shortcuts.

Crista spoke candidly about realizing that study skills were a missing piece in her own practice early on. Her students weren’t being taught these skills elsewhere, so she knew they had to be intentionally integrated into her coaching. As her private practice grew and she began hiring additional coaches, study skills training became non-negotiable.

That kind of rigor matters—especially for educators building an academic coaching business or a private practice for educators who serve neurodiverse learners. Executive function coaching isn’t just about tools; it’s about understanding why those tools work, when to use them, and how to adapt them to different students.

Bringing It All Together

Executive function coaching is not only for students with diagnosed learning differences. It’s for any student who wants to learn how to learn more effectively.

At its best, this work gives students agency. It helps them understand their own learning processes so they can make informed choices, advocate for themselves, and build systems that actually fit their brains. It’s not about rescuing students—it’s about equipping them.

If you take nothing else from this post, let it be this: every student deserves access to strategies that help them understand how their brain works—and how to work with it, not against it.

If you’d like to explore more of the ideas referenced in the video above, including study skills, executive function coaching frameworks, and tools designed for both classrooms and 1:1 settings, you can browse the free learning resources available in the Visitor’s Center of the Anti-Boring Learning Lab.

A version of the following article was originally published here on May 9th, 2023.