Two of the most common challenges students’ face are anxiety and executive function. MPY presenter, Dr. David Gotthelf explains the correlation between the two diagnoses and how educators need to develop strategies to address anxiety and executive function.
Anxiety and Executive Function
by David G. Gotthelf, Ph.D., NCSP
Having practiced for more than 40 years as a school psychologist, clinical psychologist, and university professor, the most challenging and common difficulty I experience with young people is the combination of anxiety and difficulties with executive functioning. While these are considered separate diagnoses, (Executive functioning is not a specific disorder but is often connected with ADHD), the overlap between the two is something all educators need to be mindful of and to consider.
Anxiety and executive functioning are essentially “two sides of the same coin.” The brain’s frontal lobe is strongly connected to the part of our brain containing the amygdala and lobes managing emotional regulation. Our frontal lobes have a major role in helping us manage our emotions, including anxiety, not just executive functioning. Combine this with the increasing organization and planning challenges our students face as they get older, along with the fact that their frontal lobes are not fully developed until well after high school, not to mention college, it is not surprising that stress, anxiety, and academics management are closely related. In addition to these challenges, high school and college students are also trying to manage existential demands: interpersonal relations, educational planning, and career goals.
Given these challenges, it is critical for us to learn collectively the causes, methods of assessment, and intervention strategies designed to help our students manage both anxiety and executive functioning demands.
Consider the following lyrics adapted from the song Come Together, by the Youngbloods:
Teaching students how to learn, is what we wish to do.
Learning different strategies, to make this wish come true
When we provide these awesome skills, productive lives ensue.
Come on educators, parents and others
Everybody get together
For to learn from each other right now.
