All you need to know right now:
In this course I want to share with you two tools that can identify where your own executive functions and processing modalities are and offer some ideas on what will help YOU to lean into those areas of strength as well as adding support.
Below, I have explained more about ADHD as well as introducing Executive Functions and Processing Modalities. There is a text version in the next lesson.
Transcript of - ADHD facts
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Let's begin with just a couple of basics for lesson one about ADHD.
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First of all, let's be clear.
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You do not have to have ADHD to have trouble with your executive functions.
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There are lots of other things that can happen that can affect how your executive functions are working.
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That's everything from being really tired, being stressed, to anxiety, depression, autism.
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But the important thing is it every human has executive functions, but with ADHD, they work a bit differently.
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Although it might feel like everybody has ADHD at the moment, really only about 5% of the population do.
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And the really sad thing for me and for lots of other people is that what we think of as inattentive presentation, which really means other people don't see the ADHD which is going on, on the inside just as much of a problem, if not more generally, because it's ignored by people until things really start to go wrong.
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But we all need to know how our brain works best so that we can be as successful as we want.
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Whatever we're doing, whether that's at school, at work, wherever.
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When you know how your brain works, you can do things so much more easily.
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What do we mean by executive functions? Let's dive in.
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We can classify them in lots of different ways, but the easiest way is to think, thinking and doing.
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So in the thinking column, we need to organise abstract ideas and things that aren't real, as well as plan and prioritize our actions.
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We also use working memory a lot, and this is one of the big challenges for people with ADHD.
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Working memory has a huge impact on everything else.
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Along with that comes time management, awareness of time.
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We call it the sweep of time, learning to feel how time is passing, and also metacognition, which just means being aware of how you're thinking, how you're feeling, and what that's doing to you, both in your body and your actions throughout the day.
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Then we have the doing executive functions.
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Now, these have got some fancy names, but basically response inhibition means the ability to pause for a split second before you say something, before you take an action, before you commit to something.
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And the difference between ADHD brains, and let's say average brains, is really small.
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It's milliseconds, but that is enough for our lives to be very different.
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Impulse inhibition.
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Response inhibition affects a lot of other parts of our lives, including things like spending, relationships and risky behaviour, which is something that teenagers in particular are vulnerable to.
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The next doing executive function looks like it might be in the thinking one, and it could be.
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But emotional regulation, or emotional control is essentially a physical thing.
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Our emotions are created by our neurotransmitters, our hormones that are circulating in our body.
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And the way that we experience that with ADHD is different.
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Again, it's down to neurotransmitters getting started.
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Task initiation, maintaining our focus on a task, an object, an idea, self motivation, which some, we'd say, is connected to task initiation, and that is seriously affected by our brain structure and the connections inside there.
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And flexible thinking.
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I think if I was going to put one of them at number two, I'd say flexible thinking generally comes in the top two or three for many adults and teenagers with ADHD.
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And that's because we might not think of ourselves as people who have inflexible thoughts.
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But when we are challenged on them, and we have to try and shift how we see ourselves, other people in the world, it gets tricky really quickly.