Guest Speaker Series: Peg Dawson on Smart But Scattered Students

Youngsters with poor executive skills are disorganized or forgetful, have trouble getting started on tasks, get distracted easily, lose papers or assignments, forget to bring home the materials to complete homework or forget to hand homework in. 

They may rush through work or dawdle, they make careless mistakes that they fail to catch. They don’t know where to begin on long-term assignments, and they put the assignment off until the last minute, in part because they have trouble judging the magnitude of the task and how long it will take to complete it. 

Their workspaces are disorganized, and teachers may refer to their desks, backpacks, and notebooks as “black holes.” Students with executive skill deficits present tremendous challenges to both parents and teachers who often find themselves frustrated by children whose problems in school seem to have little to do with how smart they are or how easily they learn.

The presentation will begin with an overview of the 11 skills that comprise this model, with examples of the behaviors parents might see associated with each skill. Three broad strategies that support students with executive skill challenges will then be described: 

1) how to modify the environment to support children with weak executive skills; 

2) how to help children learn and practice executive skills in the context of everyday activities; and 

3) how to use incentives to encourage children to learn and practice skills that are challenging for them.

Peg Dawson, Ed.D., is a school psychologist by training with an expertise in the assessment of learning and attention disorders. She is the co-author of numerous books on executive skills, including Smart but Scattered and Smart but Scattered Teens, is a past president of the National Association of School Psychologist and a recipient of NASP’s Lifetime Achievement Award.