Yes. Executive functioning difficulties are not only seen with ADHD. They also can be seen along with learning disabilities or with emotional difficulties such as anxiety and depression. Even students who don’t experience any of these issues may struggle with executive functioning skills. Coaching can be helpful to any student who is having problems because of a weakness in one or more executive functioning skills.

During the intake process for Executive Function Coaching, Dr. Palav collects information about the student through interview, questionnaires, and record review. This information helps her to understand how the student’s executive functioning and study skill strengths and weaknesses are affecting school performance. Also, screening for emotional and behavioral concerns helps to identify any problems that might need to be treated separately. However, neuropsychological testing to measure intellectual, memory, attention, or academic skills is not a part of the coaching intake process.

The goal of Executive Function Coaching is improving academic performance by strengthening executive functioning skills. In contrast, the goal of psychotherapy is to reduce symptoms of emotional or behavioral problems (such as anxiety, depression, or anger) or to help a person cope with a stressful life situation. For students with ADHD, a therapist might work with parents on developing a behavioral plan to reduce problem behaviors or with the student on improving his or her social skills.

Executive Function Coaching is helpful when weak executive functioning and study skills are interfering with a student’s management of assignments and test performance across academic subjects. In contrast, academic tutoring provides extra instruction and review in one or more school subjects. This is helpful when a student is struggling with specific content in a class, such as multiplication or chemistry.

It depends. The answer to this question depends on a number of factors. These include the number of goals identified by the student, the amount of strategy instruction needed, and the student’s level of motivation and commitment to using the strategies he or she is learning.