What is an Executive Function?
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- Опубліковано 29 тра 2024
- Dr. Barkley has developed one of the leading theories of executive functioning and its role in the the nature of ADHD. This theory is based on understanding the nature of the executive neuropsychological functions as a multi-level multi-component construct and its contribution to self-regulation across time to support the individual’s long-term goals and general welfare.
Barkley views EF as essential to self-regulation. He then defines self-regulation as an action to the self that is used to modify subsequent behavior to change the likelihood of a future consequence or event.
He then defines an EF as that action-to-the-self. As there are 7 major EFs, then in his view each is a class of actions we direct at ourselves to modify our behavior so as to change our future.
He then describes the development of these 7 EFs and how they come to form the 5 EFs we see people using in daily life.
Dr. Barkley’s books on EF are:
Barkley, R. A. (1997). ADHD and the nature of Self-Control. New York: Guilford Publications. Reissued in paperback in 2001.
Barkley, R. A. (2012). Executive Functions: What they are, how they work, and why they evolved. New York: Guilford Publications.
As a 34 year old man recently diagnosed, I've been processing your theory here for a few weeks now. I have realized that i always do my "best" and most organized thinking outloud to myself. I wonder if my adhd prohibited my thinking and self-regulating from turning inward during my early development. So when I'm not thinking aloud, thats when my thoughts run wild and I feel more distractable and scattered. Only offering this as an observation as it's all very new to me of course. Thank you for the work you've done throughout your career.
I like this idea, riffing off of this. To me it feels as if talking out loud makes it easier to focus on.
So like you’re saying, the turning inward stage stalls, and we have to utilise more of the outward (talking out loud) part of the executive function development phase.
Just a thought
@TSpoon823 I've noticed this about myself. I'm thinking it may be that I have aphantasia and can only verbally hear inside my mind. I can't see, smell, taste mental images.
@@tiisetsomosala9889 I think so. Things become more concrete for me when I think out loud. I still find myself going down tangents, but I can find my way back. I speak publically for a living and I HAVE to speak it even as I'm writing and preparing it for it to make sense. Same goes with my to do's, goals, etc. It seems writing it down helps only after I spoke it out loud.
Read (or listen to the audio) of the current edition of his book, Taking Charge of Adult ADHD, if you haven’t already. Diagnosed at 43. Absolute gold.
I don't have to say anything out loud, but boy, does it help if I write it down‽
Once my thoughts are on paper or the screen, I can organise them and develop them more readily.
I often tell my NT husband to please remember that my mental mechanism is a top fuel dragster and his is a Kenworth diesel. One of those is much more likely to complete an LA to NYC trip hauling tons of ice cream without making a big mess. I've repeated that analogy for 25+ years and rarely has anyone validated my insights about myself or ADHD, even when science (especially lately) gives a backbone to my colorful expressions.
Our lives with this disorder seem to be a constant battle to find balance between maximizing our performance with meds and behavioral mods, yet keeping ourselves and others aware what is a reasonable demand. I think my biggest beef with society is the mystic welding of goal attainment with a value judgment of character. That how much you do in a day and the way you do it is an extension of one's moral quality and completely choice-based, rather than almost entirely contingent upon a genetic die roll. I have always felt that a happy, functional adulthood IS attainable, and that my disability is NOT prood of antisocial temperament; I just need the freedom do it in a very different way than NT people. I have to advocate very noisily for that freedom, which my NT peers also happen to find off-putting. The more evidence-based information I read, the more I realize my instincts were in the right neighborhood all along, and it feels like long overdue vindication.
“Goal attainment with a value judgement of character” hit home for me. I push through to the planning problem solving to fulfill that judgment fear and it leaves me spent and exhausted. Btw love your analogy. I’ve always described it as I appreciate jobs in which I can sprint to the finish line not run a marathon.
At age 65, I finally diagnosed myself and then got to a clinician who did so formally. My great gratitude to you, Dr. Barkley, for your dedicated research and these videos which help me immensely.
I use these small lessons to fill my morning meditative time. Thank you for the input, Dr. Barkley.
Internet is the 8th wonder of the world
@@takiyaazrin7562HOW did humankind survive without it? And not to mention smartphones 😵💫??
My phone is my 'memory card' and 'SIM card' in one.
MANY years ago I accidentally washed my first little cell phone, full program, 40° Celsius (F 104°). It was still on when I, terrified, picked it out of the pocket it was in. Through the screen, it "screamed', in a sort of desperation; "NO CONTACT WITH SIM-CARD"😂😂😂
It actually survived for another year. You can say what you want about the early Siemens cellphones, but they were made to deal with the reality 😂!
"No contact with the SIM card", that's me without my phone. I can't reach the Internet without the SIM card 😅
Notes about what to do and when, reminder, to google things that I SHOULD remember, or know very well, but my brain refuses to open the archives 🙄.
Especially NAMES, I try to associate names to someone else with the same name, but when I can see the face of that person, but I still don't remember that name...
1. Phone book. If I know the person I look through the phone book, somewhere I'll find the name!
2. Historical or literal person; Google.
I could blame aging, but that's not all. I think it has something to do with the three burned out episodes I have had, and that I probably could increase my memory abilities, but I haven't been able to mobilize myself to begin training. (There are tons of videos for that on YT, but it's funnier to watch something else 😃!
🙄.)
However, the cellphone use is probably biting my rear, too. It's MUCH easier to look up things than memorize it...😒
📖 Once upon a time... I used to have a terrific memory, especially with numbers. Phone numbers, dates of births... Both long term, and working memories. Now I barely know my own phone number. It's shameful.
Hello Dr. Barkley. First of all thank you much for all your lectures. It has been super impactful in my intellectual and private life. After being diagnosed with ADHD, and introduced to your lectures by my psychiatrist I became incredibly interesting in studying the human mind. To the point that I am now doing a Masters degree in cognitive science. Your model was really ahead of it’s time. Much of what is contained in it, has now become mainstream part of cognitive science - in particular as it comes to cognition being perceptually grounded and embodied. That said, on its original formulation your theory opposed the computational account of the mind. Which based on the narrow view of computation as abstract symbol manipulation at the time, it made a lot of sense. Yet now, that computation is more broadly defined and taken to incorporate multi-modal simulations and perceptual grounding - I would really like to try and computationally formalise your theory. Having a computational model of EF as SR that can be used to explain brain/behavioural data and how the cognitive process leading to self-regulating actions unfolds. It would probably be the topic of my dissertation, and I would be specifically trying to use it to model ADHD task switching behaviour. If you have any comments or literature you think might be important for me to look into, please let me know! Particularly interested in the role of dopamine in modulating the EF - operant conditioning dynamics.
Hey Fernando, fellow ADHDer here. I'd like to know more about your study on EFs. Also, checking in how your computational model on EFs is going on. Interested to know more.
I talk to myself out loud every day, all day, even in the store. I have to, or I can't get survival things done. I remember in childhood, I did not know how to play by myself. When I had children, I didn't know how to play with them either.
Thank you for your explanation of EF. I am trying to learn why I do the things I do and more importantly why I misfire. I am a late bloomer to the world of ADHD. And I am trying to discover as much as I can about myself and my issues. You help and I appreciate you adding to my understanding and awareness.
My best guess: Other people think that if they tell us to do things, we'll do them. Ergo, we think that if we tell ourselves to do things, we'll do them. Which is to say, the model presented here aligns with intent. This is what how we think it works. (And this is almost everyone's intuitive mental model, that there's a "self" running the show by telling ourselves what to do.)
However, causation works in the opposite direction. We do something, then we think about it. We know what we've decided by watching to see what we do. That part of it works the same for us as for everyone else. Further, the mental narrator's function is entirely outward-facing. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves because we're practicing for the way we present ourselves to others. Or because we're confused, and think that this has some inward effect, despite abundant first-hand evidence that it does not.
I think that what we describe as failures of executive function involve taking this model too seriously. If everything's well-tuned, you're careful to tell yourself to do the things you were already going to do-the illusion of control is maintained. If you're being told that your behavior is a problem and that you need to exert extra effort to control it, you start telling yourself to ado things that you wouldn't do or can't do. The illusion breaks. But the illusion is how everyone thinks it works, and how everyone tells you it works. So you think it's just broken *for you*. There's no coherent relationship any more between what we do, what we tell ourselves, and what we tell other people. That doesn't change how our actions are actually controlled, because that isn't what any of this was about in the first place. The social story is demolished, and it's the social story that *we're talking about* when we talk about executive functions.
Or, put another way, this is a good model of executive function, but it has nothing to do with how we actually act. "Executive function" is how we communicate about our actions, not how we control our actions.
Hi Dr. Barkley, do you have any material that addresses exactly how ADHD meds help to address executive function deficits (as explained by your theory)? Most of the pharmacological explanations that I come across for ADHD medications explain things more exclusively through the lens of focus/attention, which seems to really miss the “big picture” of executive function.
The meds seem to both enhance the reward or stimulus value of events, including internally represented information as in working memory and so enhance attention, but also they seem to activate brain inhibitory systems to preclude interference from events not relevant to the goal or task, as in Distractibility. Be well
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 Thank you very much for your reply, Dr. Barkley!
Pure gold, thank you!
Thank you 🌸
Thank you 👍
Thank you for this. This channel is just fantastic.
HELPED A LOT.
Thank you Dr. Barkley, your videos are very informative as always
Amazing topics! Thank you for taking the time to break that down!
fantastic slide on the development of an Executive function, thanks for sharing your insights.
I hope you know you really saved my life doc🙏🏽
We want more videos on ef
Hello Dr. Barkley.
First of all I would like to thank you for your continuous efforts to provide us with such high quality lectures. I believe I can speak for pretty much everyone here when I say these insights into our own minds are nothing less than invaluable.
I would also like to ask you a question:
You speak of 7 cognitive executive functions, the second one being 'inhibition'.
Is it correct to state that the 'holy trinity' of ADHD (inattentiveness, impulsivity and hyperactivity) are due to a disruption in this second cognitive executive function?
Which would imply that, in essence, ADHD is indeed still largely misunderstood and 'underestimated', because the other 6 cognitive functions are also impaired.
Again, a wholehearted thank you from Belgium, Ghent.
I hope the next video dives into how the neuropathology which causes what we call ADHD connects to this. I can already extrapolate how Executive Dysfunction causes one to not be able to control one's attention/focus, how a chronic inability to do so entrenches all sorts of behaviors and patterns, and also how not being able to sustain attention/focus for any length of time causes the underdevelopment of a tacit sense of time, leading to "Time Blindness."
But what's the root of it all? What is causing the EDys? (I believe you've gone into this in your various presentations and works. Perhaps it is already up here. :)
p.s.: Thank you so much for your work. 🙏
I want to use this info to try to influence my productivity and how I make progress
This has me thinking about how/if this develops in tandem with theory of mind; i.e. the point in which we are able to distinguish and keep those previously verbalized thoughts to ourselves. The thought emerges and is expelled orally/mentally and has to be taken back up and stored in memory to be executed. If that is hindered or otherwise indistinguishable from noise its a bit like dopamine being available but taken away before we get a chance to use it.
9:45 This ti my understanding is a step by step guide of how to not just manage the condition but become normalised
I have plenty of self speech and the problem is that the self speech rarely quiets. Always what about this, why are we here, isn't this other thing more important? In the best circumstances a stimulant just makes it hang out in the background for a bit.
Vygotsky, Bronfenbrenner. ADHD disrupts cognitive development, but how about CPTSD? Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Dr Barkley, for another informative video! Could the model with the 7 EFs be used to identify problem areas, scaffolding and training needs of a person with ADHD? For example, I have trouble executing my plan for this year-long project to solve a long-term problem. Before I sign up to a project management training course, I might want to work on my nonverbal and verbal working memory first, or find ways to compensate. I could find more opportunities to speak my thoughts about running the project to others and myself. I can use more flowcharts, checklists, kanban boards, etc. Then I have to make sure I have the skills and/or assistance with regulating my emotions and motivation, before working on my project management. That or just hire a project manager who will push me to get my work done.
Yes, see my longer lectures on EF under that playlist, as well as my book, Taking Charge of Adult ADHD. Be well.
I had also considered hiring a project manager at some point, I think it’s a pretty good idea as one strategy
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 I am curious, do people with adhd talk to themselves out loud more because of issues with executive function? A compensation?
I am getting a lot of mileage from having a PA. She simultaneously functions as...
A body double: if she's working, I will work.
A sounding board for goals and priorities: she helps me to achieve a better balance between what is important and what is interesting.
A reality check: she has encouraged me to delegate work I cannot realistically complete myself.
A source of external accountability and motivation: having discussed and agreed commitments together, I'm more likely to follow through.
An external memory: her note taking helps me capture details I would have missed and she reminds me of actions I've not completed.
Yes. We think they do so as external speech can be more self governing than private speech but perhaps also because their speech never fully internalized@@blakegaskill7079
Hi Russel, you don't have any videoes about silent ADHD(ADD)?
Love the video as always and have a quick and probably silly question: Does this process (or parts of this process) of going from talking to private speech have the 30% delay guideline for someone with ADHD?
There is a delay in internalizing speech. The 30% is just an approximate estimate averaged across cases, so it can be more or less than that on an individual basis. See my lecture on the delayed EF age. Be well.
I noticed just counting in my head I vaguely feel my mouth moving to say the numbers out loud. I know Dr. Barkley mentioned this in one of his lectures on this same subject too.
Can you talk about aricept to improve working memory in people that have serious SCT?
It is a cholinergic drug so it will increase memory and attention but it will not be helpful in wakefulness/alertness/arousal that people with SCT have trouble.Medication that promote arousal(Modafinil,Caffeine,Amphetamine/Methylphenidate) activate noradrenergic/dopaminergic system are more useful in that case.
What's the relationship of Self-directed sensing 9:58 and daydreaming/rumination?
Also, does "self-directed sensing" only conceptualize those things which are "grabbed" of reality or those that concept also takes into account fictitious stuff?
If self-directed sensing also takes into account fictitious stuff, then it definitely has to go hand in hand with inhibition and self-awareness so that it does not deviate into chronic daydreaming, which is basically something i constantly need to be aware off.
Makes sense that self-awareness and inhibition are the first in the ladder
Though usually it is the resensing of experience from reality, it can also be resensing of a fantasy. Much resending is visual imagery but one can also rehear auditory events as in re-experiencing what someone has said or a song. Be well.
Two points:
1 - Most of this went over my head - the example of a child talking to themselves didn't explain the definition in a way I can process it and understand it. To me, it doesn't explain future action as an adult. If anyone cares to explain, I'm listening! :)
2 - I've asked my parents about this and I didn't talk to myself like the example here. Even quietly. I guess I'm either built differently or not every child is the same.
There's a development process in the executive functions:
- Actions start external, directed towards the environment (baby / young toddler speaks without a clear purpose)
- Actions start to become self-directed (older toddler / small child starts to speak with a purpose, and starts to speak to themselves, as if thinking out lout)
- Actions start to become internalized (older child starts to whisper to themselves instead of talking out loud as a way of thinking)
- Actions are fully internalized (teenager is able to have an internal monologue = their thoughts don't become externalized as speech unless they choose to)
The change over time is linked to increased self-regulation of the action. Rather than merely acting outwards on a whim, the person becomes increasingly capable of directing the action towards themselves, and eventually keep the action within themselves unless they choose to externalize it.
how does time blindness affect the succession of the 7 executive functions?
Does this characteristic of ADHD prevent the perception of Time as a seamless continuum by interfering between two executive functions according to the order established by your theory?
Greetings from Algeria and good continuation !
I so need your help😢
First! Finally!
Shout out to the people that recognise the powerpoint layout.
Also, can an adult/young adult try to develop these executive abilities step by step?
Hello Dr. Barkley, do you differentiate the concepts of Executive Function and Executive Skills? Dawson and Guare speak of 12 Executive Skills (metacognition, working memory, time management, emotional control, stress tolerance, response inhibition, organization, planning and prioritizing, task initiation, cognitive flexibility, goal directed persistence, sustained attention) - and there appears to be some cross over with your 7 EF. What are your thoughts here?
While I like their work very much, Peg and Richard refer to these as skills which, to me, are things you acquire via learning but are not born with, like riding a bike or writing cursive. I see the EF components as abilities or capacities that are an inherent part of the human frontal lobe that can be enhanced by practice to some extent or by rearranging the environment to make their use more timely and efficient. I think that they are universal to humans, not acquired skills. Thanks!
I wish I came upon your video Dr. Barkley twenty years ago ADHD has ruined my life. My psychiatrist kept treating me for depression and anxiety that never worked but never assessed me for ADHD now after twenty years tried 3 different meds and due to side effects had to stop and now scared to try different medication but doing psychotherapy every week not sure if i should still try a different medication please advise Dr. Barkley. Thank You.
why don´t work with a therapist on strategies to make your life easier? You should not leave the meds! but you coud live so much better. I always tell my patients that every strategy that works is one anxiety episode less (even a pill less) I believe you really need a therapist to work in tangible strategies to better your day to day life, besides doctors (a licensed one no matter the country ;) )
Dr Barkley, could you talk about the link between Parkinson and ADHD? My mum has Parkinson and my 6 years old boy has just been diagnosed with ADHD.
I think an episode on potential links between degenerative disorders, autoimmune diseases and adhd might be interesting. My mum has multiple sclerosis and I have ADHD and I have read that there is apparently some statistical link between the two
His book on executive functions is quite difficult to read
I know you have expressed reservations about the neurodiversity movement in the past, but your theory of Executive Function seems very friendly to the weaker social modelof disability (i.e., it doesn't write-off the role of abnormal physiology in disability) commonly associated with the neurodiversity paradigm popularized by Judy Singer. After all, if our self-directed actions are predominantly derived from successful externally-directed actions, then wouldn't that mean the development of one's executive functioning is dependent on one's environment being sufficiently suitable for said development. Sure, we'd expect the typical list of executive functions to be generally adaptive for most environments normal to our modern society, but modern society is surely more complex and variable than any prior generation of human society. Is it possible that those who struggled to develop the typical list of executive functions have those struggles exacerbated by an increasingly complex and demanding social environment? Perhaps human culture has evolved to a point of such complexity that we cannot hide our individual differences as easily as we once did, and perhaps we are collectively coming to realize the emperor has no clothes.
second
Wow probably not clinically valuable, the way I've described executive function (since I coined the term-- and then discovered it existed already!) is that executive function is the ability to have your moment-to-moment actions align with your larger goals, values, and interests.
Can your theory be scientifically validated?
Yes, this is discussed in both my 1997 book on ADHD and Self Control and in my later 2012 book on Executive Function. Indeed some of its implications have already been validated. This is the only theory that predicted a problem with sense of time and time management in ADHD, which of course is now well validated. Also a delay in the internalization of speech, now well validated, and many other testable hypotheses. Be well.
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 how does the internalization of speech in a young child get scientifically tested?
Laura Berk wrote and entire book on the subject including reviewing her own research and many chapters by other researchers. Also see her work in journals using Google Scholar as your search engine.@@rickturnr
@@russellbarkleyphd2023 Her book Development Through The Lifespan looks like a handbook on how to human! I'll look for a copy.
Islam said u are tempted by the devil