Understanding Neurodivergence & Executive Functioning

What is Executive Functioning?

Big and small, daily life is full of goals. Clean the space. Finish the project. Make the appointment. Executive functioning is what you engage to work toward any kind of goal, a collection of top-level mental skills you harness to think, process, remember, decide, and react.¹

Types of Executive Functions

Executive functions are often grouped into categories: working memory, cognitive flexibility, cognitive inhibition, and inhibitory (or impulse) control, and attentional control.^2,3 Let’s look at the skills in each.

Working memory

This is the ability to hold something in your mind—a fact, a detail, a piece of information—and use it. This could mean applying a set of directions to something you’re working on, transposing a code from one app to another, or reading something and retaining the information to answer questions later. Working memory includes:

• Comprehension, reasoning, and problem solving
• Holding several items in mind at once to complete a task
• Planning and completing tasks toward accomplishing a goal
• Understanding, storing, and retrieving information when needed

Cognitive flexibility

Also known as flexible thinking, this is the ability to consider something—a thought, approach, fact, etc.—more than one way. Any time you’ve thought of something from another point of view or tried another approach to solving a problem, you’ve exercised cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility includes:

• Quickly switching between mental tasks
• Thinking about many things at once
• Thinking about something in more than one way at the same time

Inhibitory control

This keeps you cool, calm, and collected—or at least prevents shouting over people the moment you have a thought. Inhibitory control helps you manage your impulses so you can get through day-to-day life in a (reasonably) orderly fashion. Inhibitory control includes:

• Comparing, contrasting, and managing the intersection of thoughts and emotions
• Managing size, time, and intensity of emotions and emotional responses
• Responding appropriately in social situations
• Self-regulation, including controlling inhibition

Cognitive inhibition

When you’re faced with distractions, cognitive inhibition lets you ignore what’s irrelevant. It works hand-in-hand with attention control, filtering out anything you don’t need to pay attention to so your attention can be focused appropriately. Cognitive inhibition includes:

• Filtering sensory input
• Preventing distractions from leading away from tasks

Attentional control

When you zero in on what’s really important—a task, a sensation, a conversation, etc.—this is you putting attentional control to work. With cognitive inhibition helping filter out what’s not important, you can accomplish deep focus with attentional control. It also includes:

• Concentrating on a task
• Maintaining concentration

What Does it Mean to Be Neurodivergent?

The concepts of neurodiversity and neurodivergence have been steadily gaining traction and acceptance since they were first defined in the late 1990s by Australian sociologist Judy Singer.⁴ Put simply, neurodiversity is the range of cognitive differences across individuals.

Until quite recently, neurodivergence had typically been used to classify ways of thinking, processing, or learning differently from “the norm.”⁵ Now, though, medical professionals and the literature tend toward the concept of “differences aren’t deficits”: Since there is no one, or best, way to think, neurodiversity abounds with or without diagnoses. In Singer’s own words, “Neurodiversity refers to the virtually infinite neuro-cognitive variability within Earth’s human population. It points to the fact that every human has a unique nervous system with a unique combination of abilities and needs.”⁴

Common Types of Neurodiversity

There’s no single test or diagnosis that’ll indicate neurodivergent thinking. However, when discussing neurodiversity and different ways of thinking and understanding, the conversation typically includes people who are living with one or more of the following:⁵

• Anxiety
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Autism spectrum disorders
• Bipolar disorder
• Borderline personality disorder
• Depression
• Down syndrome
• Dyscalculia
• Dyslexia
• Dyspraxia
• Epilepsy
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Synesthesia
• Tourette’s syndrome

How Neurodivergence Affects Executive Functioning

It makes sense that neurodiverse people engage executive functions in a range of ways. There are benefits to thinking differently, but challenges present themselves too. Neurodivergent people might experience several executive functioning differences when it comes to day-to-day abilities such as:⁶

• Asking for help
• Changing approach or thought by integrating new information
• Evaluating ideas (old and new)
• Evaluating the quality of one’s work
• Finishing projects or reaching goals
• Keeping track of time
• Keeping track of more than one thing concurrently
• Monitoring goals
• Planning toward goals
• Waiting to speak or for a turn
• Working in a group

Managing Executive Functioning Differences

Differences aren’t deficits, but they can present challenges. While neurodiversity is gaining recognition and acceptance in schools and workplaces, social mores haven’t been as quick to catch up; some expectations around work and school are counter to the executive functioning of neurodivergent groups. But managing executive functioning differences doesn’t have to be a challenge itself. Coaching and therapies are available, but finding approaches to organization that make sense or tools that are intuitive to use and help keep track of day-to-day things can go a long way toward helping strengthen your unique approach to thinking, processing, and learning.