Task Initiation Recording

Hi. My name is Helen Ray,

and I'm an international educator with a specialty in dyslexia,

and I've worked in inclusion for over 20 years all around the world.

Today's presentation is to do with understanding executive functions

and with a particular focus on task, initiation and time blindness,

which I believe are two areas that are often not

really talked about and are also not always properly understood.

So for those who aren't familiar with the executive functions,

um, they tend to be divided into these eight categories.

So, as you can see on the wheel, you've got impulse control,

emotional control, flexible thinking,

working memory,

self monitoring,

planning, prioritising task, initiation

organisation

and impulse control.

So that's a lot of different areas,

and

I think you will see, as you look at them,

that they are all areas which impact life in general, not just life at school.

Um, but for those students who are neuro diverse,

these areas can have a serious impact on their functioning day to day.

So if you just think about a typical school day or for adults a typical work day,

um, it will mean that it's very difficult, um, to be well organised

and to do some other things that people take for granted.

So students who've got challenges with executive functions,

these are the students who are often late for lessons.

They lose their equipment. They don't know where it is.

Um, they find it hard to remember to hand in their homework often,

even though they've actually done it.

They don't hand it in,

Um, they can have difficulty if they've got a longer project or homework to do.

They can find it very hard to organise that properly

and can leave a lot of things to last minute,

which can very much affect their grades and their performance.

Um,

they might be very impulsive when they're in class.

They might interrupt the teacher. They might just call out their idea.

And the bit that what I'm focusing on today is

they might find it very hard to start a task,

even if they actually understand what the task entails.

Now, particularly um, students with a DH d,

they will struggle with these executive functions.

Um, research tells us that there can be between a five uh, a five,

a three and five year delay

in executive functions within those with a DH d,

and so that can have a serious impact on the way that they perform at school.

And it's important to realise that executive functions are not to

do with your general intelligence or your general kind of functioning,

so you could have very good verbal reasoning and excellent vocabulary.

Be very good at explaining things. But you could struggle with these things, which

the thing is that many people think these things are very simple.

So they find it hard when a when a student can explain

some topic in great depth and show a real understanding of things.

And then, as I say, they they forget to hand their homework in,

and it just comes across as being careless or, you know, not really trying.

And that's the important thing, that these deficits are genuine deficits,

and they're to do with the way that the frontal

lobe is developing and they aren't within the students control.

That's not to say there aren't things that we can do to help develop um,

executive functions, and that's part of the presentation today is to think

about how we can improve task initiation,

particularly for those who struggle with it.

Also, students who are dyslexic may have some of these difficulties as well.

Um, in general,

students who are neuro diverse do struggle with executive functions.

Um, but as I say very often,

they're kind of seen as character flaws as opposed to being a a serious, um,

difficulty

that is not easily overcome.

So moving on

so executive functions, I think,

is something that people are only just now starting to talk about and

starting to realise that that's why some of these very intelligent students,

um, do not perform well in school and equally why very talented adults can

struggle to keep down a job,

find a job even and function day to day because

executive functions are those kind of skills for life Now,

for some, it seems like they develop almost automatically.

In fact, we don't even seem to really know how they're developing.

And very often it's because these skills actually are being modelled at home.

Um, parents you, you know, may maybe have a checklist.

They have a calendar where they organise how they're doing that.

So some students are seeing those things modelled day by day with

the adults in their life and then start as they become,

um, old enough and mature enough, they start automatically doing these things.

But for many,

they do need to be explicitly taught.

And I think, yeah, it's one of those things where I think as teachers,

we expect parents to be, um,

dealing with these things because they're life skills.

And as parents, as we have more and more busy lives, we expect it the school,

the school should be dealing with organisational skills and study skills and so on.

And probably the truth is, is somewhere in between, I would say,

but certainly for many students, if they are not explicitly taught these things,

these skills are not going to develop.

So the focus of the talk today is to do with task initiation

and task Initiation is this idea that even when a student has the skills

and understands in principle understands the task,

they might not be able to get started?

Um, it is that kind of classic fear of the blank page,

and I have to say I have experienced it

first hand where I've been on a training course.

Uh uh.

One of my vivid memories is being asked

on a a literacy teacher literacy training course.

We were asked to write a poem about a cat.

Now, that sounds very simple, doesn't it? We are. You know, I know what a cat is.

I know what a poem is.

Should be very easy,

but I can literally remember looking at this blank page and thinking, you know,

But what what part of the cat do I start with?

You know, am I going to describe what the cat looks like?

Am I gonna describe how the cat's moving

should it be? Um, a kind of funny poem Should it be

serious? You know, maybe I could do an acrostic or haiku

and as all these thoughts like whizzing around my head, Of course,

nothing is happening on that page,

and I I'll be honest. About 10 minutes went by

and I could see people around me had nearly finished writing.

Their poem, at least definitely had done about half the poem.

Um, and I hadn't even started by

Now. If you think that's my adult experience, you can imagine

for some students what it can feel like in the in the classroom,

where they're particularly if you have a DH d you know,

you're being bombarded with all these different thoughts,

and you just simply do not know how to start.

So there are another A number of reasons.

I would say that the for me it was that I was overwhelmed.

So I was overwhelmed by the task, and I was overwhelmed by my thoughts.

And that's why,

uh, I couldn't get started.

Sometimes the overwhelm can be because there are too many parts of the tasks.

And sometimes teachers aren't really aware

that, you know, they know they've got 45 minutes lesson, they give an introduction,

and then they they want to plan sufficient material for the lesson.

But they don't realise by saying, you know, first of all,

I want you to answer this question and then you've got another quest.

10 questions on this, and then when you finish that, I want you to draw this diagram.

For some students, that is literally just too overwhelming.

It seems like too much to do.

And so then they don't even want to start.

Um, for some students, it is to do with working memory.

And this would be true of those who've got a DH

d or dyslexia or autism would have these memory working,

working memory difficulties.

And there are also students who just have memory working

difficulties and don't fit under one of those umbrellas.

But

when teachers are giving explanations and explain,

particularly if it's new material,

the the working memory can be very challenged.

Partly, it depends how things are being presented.

If things are being presented with visuals or there's a video,

then you have more chance of tuning in.

And it's not so heavy on the working memory.

But if the teacher is verbally talking through a new

concept with lots of new vocabulary, then that can be very,

very draining on someone with working memory difficulties.

And so it can be that they've spent so much effort listening during that

first part of the lesson that by time that they get to start,

Really, you know, they, they, they they, um

their bucket is empty.

Shall we say they don't have the intellectual energy to then

start doing a task which will require more working memory?

Um,

sometimes it is. They genuinely don't know what to do first.

So if it is a more project based type thing.

So, you know, I want you to, um, research animals that live in the desert.

It's quite an open ended task,

and it can be genuinely that the student doesn't know what step to take first.

You know,

they make a list of animals themselves, you know, a brain on some ideas,

and then maybe google one of them, but they they don't know.

They just don't know what that first, um, step is.

Also, for students who are neuro

averse, there is a genuine fear of failure.

You know, in a way,

it's almost better not to start the task than to start the task and fail,

and their past experience tells them,

you know, in reality, it's not. It's not a a silly fear, shall we say,

um, you know,

their past tells them that they often struggle with the work that

they maybe don't complete it or if they do complete it.

The teacher is not happy with the standard of it,

Um, so that then is very off putting.

Most of us don't want to start things, um,

that we know we're not going to be able to do a good job on

and then also the the working memory can also cause

this difficulty of not really properly remembering previous lessons.

So teachers very often plan a series of lessons

and and they make the task quite similar with

the idea that it isn't like building blocks.

You, you you practise this skill,

this skill and then Alexis and you're going to put those two skills together.

But the problem is, if you don't really remember those first two skills,

then you're not putting two skills together.

You're actually literally start starting again.

And for many students, particularly with dyslexia and a DH d,

it is like Groundhog Day.

They you know,

they they don't really fully they might have an

inkling of something they did the day before.

Um, with some prompts, it might come back to them,

but they certainly don't have a clear picture of that.

And so when you're drawing on that of what you did the day before, and you're saying,

Oh, well, when you follow a similar sequence from yesterday,

um, it isn't really very meaningful for them.

Um, and then

overall,

the people who've got a DH d then have an added bone of contention

in the sense of their brain chemicals.

So people with a DH d do have an interest driven brain,

and that isn't a choice. A lot of people think it's a choice, you know.

Why is it that they can focus really well on that video game?

But, you know, I'm asking them to do 10 sums, and they can't even get started.

It's not a choice. It's because

in there is AAA deficit in the the brain, the neurotransmitter chemicals.

And so when it's not something interesting that really sparks,

um, the student, those chemicals are

not being produced at the same level as they are for most other people.

And so it is. It is almost painful to start.

Um, it's very hard to explain for people who don't experience that,

Um, as I say it can appear like laziness or or a choice when it really isn't

so. There are quite a lot of things that you can do,

um, to help develop, um, to help people who've got difficulty with task initiation.

Um, and around the outside,

I've put some of the kind of general things

that you would really want to create within a school

So you know to just create that safe environment where it's OK to ask for help.

It's OK to ask for, um,

instructions to be repeated,

um,

building up the students step by step by giving them just small bite size tasks.

To do that, you know, they can succeed in If they have that lesson after lesson,

then their capacity to try something to be

brave and try something a little bit harder,

you know will grow.

And so that that is on the teacher, I have to say,

or on the parent to create that environment where the the

student feels safe and they feel they can have a go.

Task Initiation Recording

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