The Executive Function Gap I Didn’t Know My Coach Training Had
If you've been in my world for a while, you may have heard this story.
Back in 2010, after not being recontracted as a classroom teacher at a local private school, I interviewed for a job as an academic coach. The woman interviewing me asked, "Do you know what executive functions are?"
"No, I don't," I said. "But I can make up an answer for you and take a guess?"
She smiled with amusement. "Sure."
I answered something about the skills we need in life to do the kind of high-level organizing and planning that executives of a company do.
"You're very smart, and that's close, so good job," she told me. "But do go learn more about them."
I did — sort of. I read a few articles online, saw some lists of what counted as an executive function — things like task initiation and planning — and thought, I get it. I didn't read much more.
She hired me anyway. That's my origin story about how I became an academic coach, and how I discovered that this work — coaching students one-on-one to equip them with the tools to not bore their own brains in school and in life — was my passion, my best skill, and eventually my expertise.
I’m finally doing my EF homework
But if I’m honest—it was the coaching of study skills I was motivated to get better at, not the actual executive functions underneath them.
I just assumed the items on that list overlapped with the strategies I was already bringing to my sessions. I never saw a reason to go deeper.
Fast forward sixteen years. While I’d picked up plenty about EF from the brilliant coaches in the Learning Lab, I realized it was time to bridge my own gap.
This year, I finally committed to a deep dive into executive function science and strategies through:
Ongoing discussions with Susannah Cole, co-author of Flexible Mindsets in Schools and a true EF expert.
I'm thrilled to have so much more knowledge under my belt. I'm also a lot more humble than I was in 2010—the deeper you go into a topic, the more you realize how much there is to learn.
Once I finished Crista's course, I held myself to the exact standard I ask of coaches in my Anti-Boring Toolkit Certification: time to hone my notes!
Synthesizing what you learn isn't just a nice habit—it's how real learning takes root. I couldn't just finish the course and call it a day; I had to hone what I'd learned into my own framework for the EF of study skills. And since the best way to test and refine a new framework is to teach it, I decided to build a free webinar to share it with other coaches.
(More on that webinar in a bit!)
But first, let’s back up.
What are EFs anyway? Depends on who you ask
Part of why the world of executive function gets so confusing is that different fields mean slightly different things by the term “executive function.”
Take a look at these two models:
| List 1 | List 2 |
|---|---|
| Response Inhibition | Inhibitory Control |
| Working Memory | Working Memory |
| Emotional Control | Cognitive Flexibility |
| Sustained Attention | |
| Task Initiation | |
| Planning/Prioritization | |
| Organization | |
| Time Management | |
| Flexibility | |
| Metacognition | |
| Goal-Directed Persistence | |
| Stress Tolerance |
Twelve items on one side, three on the other—both describing the same general territory. But one much more detailed than the other! What gives?
Understanding both approaches
To make sense of why these different maps exist, it helps to look at who created each list and why:
List 1 comes from practitioners (specifically Dawson & Guare’s popular Smart But Scattered framework). Their framework focuses on “executive skills”—practical, observable behaviors such as planning, organization, and time management. The list is longer because it gives coaches and educators actionable language for the real-world skills students use to manage school and life. Significantly, their framework doesn’t actually use the phrase “executive functions.”
List 2 comes from neuroscientists (specifically Adele Diamond’s foundational research). Neuroscientists look under the hood at the brain’s core architecture. For a scientist, clarity and neurological precision are everything. They present the "science"—isolating the unambiguous, foundational mechanisms tied directly to the prefrontal cortex (PFC).
We need to admire and understand both approaches:
Neuroscience helps us understand some of the foundational mechanisms that support self-regulation.
Practitioner frameworks give us actionable language for translating those mechanisms into daily student success.
The Real Gap in Coach Training
Coach training can vary widely in how deeply it addresses executive function. Some programs emphasize a single practical list of skills; others focus more on cognitive research; many coaches, like I once did, piece their understanding together across multiple sources.
That variation can make the field feel confusing. If you absorbed one EF list early on and assumed it was the whole picture, you are not alone: executive function is an umbrella term, and researchers and practitioners organize its components in different ways.
That is not a failure on anyone’s part. It is a reminder that this important field benefits from both practical tools and a clearer understanding of the research underneath them.
Which is exactly why I’m excited to share my Anti-Boring framework for EF because i tried hard to bring together both the science and the practitioner perspectives.
Here’s a sneak peek at the model I’ll be unveiling at this free training:
In Dawson and Guare's framework (List 1), all twelve skills are presented in a flat list, which can make it feel as though each executive function operates at the exact same level of the brain.
But through a neuroscientific lens, these items are not all the same kind of thing. As I parsed the literature, I began to see meaningful differences in brain architecture, developmental timing, and functional complexity.
Phew. This is getting heady, huh?! But let’s lean in just a little bit more. Here’s how those distinctions break down for me:
Core Executive Processes (Foundational Architecture): Processes such as response inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility are widely described as core executive functions. They rely heavily on prefrontal cortex circuitry while also working through broader, interacting brain networks (Diamond, 2013). These core processes provide important building blocks for self-regulation.
Applied Life Skills (Real-World Outputs): Skills such as time management and organization are not usually treated as core executive processes in the same way as inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Instead, they are complex, real-world routines that draw on multiple cognitive processes, knowledge, habits, tools, and environmental supports.
Distributed Regulatory Systems: Sustained attention, emotion regulation, and metacognition are all important for student success, but they are not best understood as single, isolated “PFC skills.” Attention relies on distinct but interacting alerting, orienting, and executive-attention networks; emotion regulation and metacognition also recruit distributed networks that include prefrontal, cingulate, parietal, and—in some tasks—subcortical regions (Posner & Rothbart, 2007; Fleming & Dolan, 2012; Kohn et al., 2014).
Once you view executive function through these distinct biological layers, it becomes clear why treating them as a single, flat list leaves so many gaps in our coaching.
Why these distinctions matter for your coaching
I know some of this feels super technical! You might be thinking: "How are these distinctions going to help me coach students better? Or support me in the classroom?"
I’ll be walking through the exact practical application step-by-step during the free training, but here is the quick answer: it gives you a clearer framework for how to diagnose student struggle.
Oh, and by the way: none of what I’ve shared above is settled science. Researchers continue to debate how executive functions should be defined, measured, and organized, and practitioner frameworks serve a different purpose from laboratory models. Please remember that this hierarchy is my own synthesis of the literature, designed to create a more useful coaching map—not a claim that there is one final, universally accepted EF model.
And… once I stopped treating every item on a list as equally foundational, I understood why some of my go-to strategies weren’t landing as well as I hoped with certain students. I realized that I was sometimes handing a student an applied-skill strategy—like “use a planner” or “write a list!”—without also identifying what was making that strategy hard to use. The barrier might involve a core executive process, but it might also involve unclear routines, an overwhelming task, an inaccessible system, limited practice, or a need for stronger environmental support.
Sheesh! Our work as EF detectives is complex isn’t it?! Yep. Which is why I think we need a clearer framework that matches this complexity but is also easier to use. I hope I’ve found that in my new model.
Science + strategies: the Anti-Boring approach to executive function
Sorting these skills into a clear hierarchy was a missing link in my academic and executive function coaching.
Learning how to connect strategies to the different kinds of executive-function demands underneath them is now the centerpiece of the model we’ll walk through together in the free training on August 22.
That’s really the heart of our philosophy at the Anti-Boring Learning Lab: Science + Strategies.
We don’t have to choose between neuroscience and practical checklists. Both are useful. Practitioner models give us accessible, actionable language for the skills students need in everyday life; research helps us ask deeper questions about the cognitive processes and systems that may support—or complicate—those skills.
When we bring those perspectives together, we can form more useful hypotheses about where a student is getting stuck and choose supports that better fit the barrier in front of them. Pair that clarity with practical strategies, and students have a better shot at turning insight into action.
If you’re ready to bridge that gap in your own practice, I’d love to show you how to apply this model step-by-step.
Ready to see the full framework in action?
Join us Saturday, August 22 for our free webinar: The EFs That Make (or Break) Study Skills. I’ll walk step-by-step through the entire hierarchy map and show you exactly how to use it in your sessions with students.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the main difference between practitioner and neuroscientist definitions of executive function?
A: Practitioner frameworks (like Dawson & Guare) focus on actionable, real-world behaviors and often feature expanded lists of 10 to 16 applied skills (e.g., organization, time management). Neuroscientist models (like Adele Diamond) focus on core brain architecture tied directly to the prefrontal cortex, isolating foundational mechanisms down to 3 primary processes: inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility.
Q: Why do some academic coaching and study skills strategies fail with students?
A: Traditional executive-function lists often place core cognitive processes, complex real-world skills, and broader regulatory capacities side by side. That can make it easy to overlook the different demands involved. A strategy such as using a planner may not help if a student also needs support with task initiation, working memory, planning, understanding the system, or making the routine easy enough to sustain.
Q: What are the three tiers in the Anti-Boring model for executive function?
A: The Anti-Boring framework organizes executive functions into a clear hierarchy based on brain architecture, developmental timing, and functional complexity:
Core PFC Processes: These are the foundational cognitive processes—like response inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility—that rely heavily on prefrontal cortex networks (PFC). Think of them as the underlying mental machinery that makes self-regulation possible.
Applied Life Skills: These are the complex, real-world skills students are asked to perform—things like time management, organization, and planning. They are what self-regulation looks like in daily life, and they draw on core processes as well as habits, tools, knowledge, and support.
Whole-Brain Networks: These are big, essential capacities—like sustained attention, emotional regulation, and metacognition—that recruit multiple brain systems working together. They matter enormously for school success, but they are not tidy, isolated “PFC skills.”
What I'll walk through Saturday, August 22, 2026 is how these three layers actually combine into one usable map — and how to translate that map into specific study skills strategies for the student sitting across from you.
Q: What does "Science + Strategies" mean in academic coaching?
A: "Science + Strategies" is the philosophy that effective coaching requires both deep neurological understanding and practical practitioner tools. Respecting the neuroscience allows coaches to accurately diagnose the root level where a student is stuck, while practitioner strategies provide the targeted tools needed to build effective study habits.
Q: Why is your model graphic blank/blurred? I want to see the full framework!
A: The blurred graphic is just a sneak peek to show you the structural shape of the hierarchy—how core prefrontal processes, applied life skills, and whole-brain networks fit together. I’m filling in every single blank, breaking down all the specific skills, and showing you how to apply the complete framework live during this weekend's free webinar!
Your Turn
Now I’d love to hear from you!
Looking at those two original models—the 12-item practitioner list vs. the 3-item neuroscientist list—which side did your early training lean toward?
Did you absorb a long list of applied skills, or were you focused purely on core brain processes? Maybe you haven’t actually done an EF training yet? Where do you feel the biggest gap is in your coaching right now?
Drop your thoughts in the comments below—I read and reply to every single one!
Citations
Connected Pathways Academy. Mastering Executive Function with Crista Hopp.
Dawson, P., & Guare, R. (2009). Smart but Scattered. Guilford Press.
Diamond, A. (2013). Executive Functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168.
Dunstan, J., & Cole, S. (2021). Flexible Mindsets in Schools: Channelling Brain Power for Critical Thinking, Complex Problem-Solving and Creativity. Routledge.
Fleming, S. M., & Dolan, R. J. (2012). The neural basis of metacognitive ability. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1594), 1338–1349.
Kohn, N., Eickhoff, S. B., Scheller, M., Laird, A. R., Fox, P. T., & Habel, U. (2014). Neural network of cognitive emotion regulation: An ALE meta-analysis and MACM analysis. NeuroImage, 87, 345–355.
Posner, M. I., & Rothbart, M. K. (2007). Research on attention networks as a model for the integration of psychological science.Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 1–23.