What can Parents do?

First, have a thorough neuropsychological evaluation done.  Assessment instruments should include:

• Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function™

• The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)

• Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA)

• Boston Naming Test

• Rey Osterreith Complex Figure (ROCF)-copy, Immediate Recall, 20' Delayed Recall

• Beery Visual Motor Integration (VMI)

• Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning (WRAML)

• California Verbal Learning Test - Children's Version (CVLT-C)

• Tower of Hanoi

• WRAVMA Pegboard

• Repeated Patterns Test

• Wide Range Achievement Test - Third Edition (WRAT-3)

• Gray Oral Reading Test - Third Edition (GORT-3)

•  Achenbach Child Behavior Observation

The  neuropsychologists and diagnosticians in the Baltimore/ Washington D.C. area that I know best and recommend are:

A partial list of accommodations appropriate for students with Executive Dysfunction

    Although each person is different, and accommodations should be individually matched with the student's particular areas of need, here is a list of some general accommodations appropriate for leveling the playing field for people with Executive Dysfunction:

• Use of check lists for multistep procedures such as math problems, cleaning a room, assembling a research report, conducting a science lab and the like.  
• Provision of written directions wherever oral ones are presented.
• Provision of detailed directions for any long term or multi-step assignment with stages identified.  For example: 
  • Stage 1 assemble materials 
    • (list of materials necessary to the project here).  
  • Stage 2 Directions for the first component process here (i.e. combine like terms or cut pieces from template etc.
    • list of sub processes here
• Provision of a facilitator for test taking. 
  • Such a facilitator would have a copy of the test and the student would then read the questions and directions aloud to the facilitator who would prompt the student to re-read if something was skipped or taken out of order. 
  • The facilitator makes sure that the student checks her/his lists of steps in any procedure, but does not provide content help. 
• Provision of thought processing software like Inspiration, word processing software, dictation software, and the like.
• Accommodation for comorbid dysfunctions like Dysgraphia, or impulsivity.

  Over time, these accommodations may become less necessary for the student as they develop the habit of thinking this way.  In a sense we are training the student's mind to do things that do not come naturally to them, but that they can learn to do with cognitive training and time.