Executive Skill Challenges: Adults Have Them, Too!

December 22, 2016
by: Peg Dawson

Our professional focus over many years has been on children with executive skill weaknesses. In working with parents and teachers, however, we discovered that we could enhance their understanding of the challenges that kids are up against by encouraging them to look at their own executive skill profile. In fact, we’ve been told by many readers of Smart but Scattered that their assessment of their own executive skills profile was the most interesting part of the book.

This led us to write a book for adults. The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success gives readers not only the opportunity to assess their executive skills, using several self-assessment questionnaires, but also strategies and tips for capitalizing on executive skill strengths and managing executive skill weaknesses. We adapt the same basic strategies we use with kids to an adult population. The book will certainly appeal to adults with ADHD, since they tend to have more significant executive skill challenges than a non-ADHD population, but we also believe that the book will be useful for anyone who can identify some problem areas associated with executive skills. And who among us can’t do that? In fact, throughout the book, the authors draw on their own profiles (and those of other family members) and the coping strategies they have developed to manage their challenges.

While the book was written as a “self-help” book, we think it can be a great resource for therapists, coaches, and other clinicians who work with adults struggling with issues in their work, home, or relationships that result from executive skill challenges.

We have also designed a training for clinicians to help them use our ideas to work with their clients with executive skill challenges. PESI is sponsoring these seminars, beginning in November. To learn more about these offerings, visit the PESI website (https://www.pesi.com) and type Smart but Scattered Adults into the search engine. Hope to see you at an upcoming training!