The Construct Formerly Known as Executive Function
And the meaning-making core that wants to take its place
When you’re a cognitive-linguistic therapist, half your job is executive function. So when you see a paper1 published in a peer-reviewed journal announcing the debunking of executive function, you take pause. I mean, for years, there’s been talk about how there’s no consensus about the term, but totally gone? This is going to cause a stir.
I cleared my schedule. Okay, actually I didn’t. But I wanted to, because I was super intrigued. And I was right to be. The findings are compelling and closely related to the work I do.
First a bit about executive function as we’ve known it:
Executive function is everywhere. It’s how we start our days, how we navigate the grocery store, and how we share our ideas. It’s there all the time, but it’s running behind the scenes, so it’s hard to put your finger on it. Since the days of Phineas Gage (the guy who survived a tamping rod to the frontal lobe in the 1800’s; it’s illegal to write an article on this topic without mentioning him), executive function has been somewhat elusive. It’s there for sure, but what is it actually? Consistent with this ambiguity, educators, researchers, and clinicians have never agreed on a definition.
I certainly don’t have one for people to rally behind, but I also don’t think it’s fair to talk about debunking something without giving it its moment in the sun. For that reason, and to get you into the game if you’re just coming to it, I give you the following entirely too-short review of how you might hear executive function being discussed.
A cheat sheet for the newly initiated
Let’s plop you in an educational or clinical setting where you are discussing a developmental (i.e., always been there) or acquired (i.e., new to you, typically resulting from neurological involvement) executive function weakness. In this context, executive function will likely be referred to as goal-directed behavior, shorthand for all the things you need to do in order to do the thing you want to get done. After learning this phrase, you may be provided an analogy (e.g., the brain’s orchestra conductor, the brain’s chief executive officer) to help it make sense. You’ll then hear how executive function skills impact organization, time management, and emotional management. To make it more concrete, you may be offered examples of a few executive function skills that fall under the big executive function umbrella, say initiating, sequencing, and monitoring. (You will be offered only a few examples because the list of executive function skills is loooong.2) At this point, you’ll break into the back and forth sharing of the daily impact of weak executive function (e.g., lost items, late assignments, disorganized expression) and the concerning longview struggles (e.g., difficulty in college; missed promotions; difficulty with relationships), which will go straight to your heart because you or someone you love, or at least know, is struggling mightily to develop these critical life skills and losing both self-esteem and hope fast.
Now we’ll move you to a research space. Here, you’ll likely hear a more technical description of the construct. Executive function will be described as a set of higher-order cognitive skills that are used together to achieve a goal. You’ll be provided with more technical terms (e.g., inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, metacognition). Then you’ll start talking about theoretical frameworks. Vygotsky and Luria for their foundational work on higher-order mental functions. Baddeley and Hitch for their working memory model and central executive concept. And Miyake et al. for their unity/diversity model that describes three individual but related components: updating/working memory, shifting/cognitive flexibility, and inhibition/self-control. Then you’ll hear that there was push back on the idea that these pieces could be separated, and with that, dynamic systems models will enter stage left, stating that all executive skills depend on the goal (and content related to that goal) and are influenced by cognitive, emotional, and environmental factors because executive functions exist in the real world and therefore age, experience, and sociocultural contexts need to be considered. Brain imaging supports this theory, showing with functional-MRI that executive function isn’t all housed in one part of the brain, but that instead, hubs and connections allow for decentralized organization, which makes sense, since we humans are flexible thinkers.
So there’s the context you need. Well, that and to know that all of these people, and so many more, know how important executive function skills are and are working hard to make things better for the people who live with weak ones.
Now to the paper:
In case you didn’t follow the link above, here’s the title of the Developmental Review article: Executive function: Debunking an overprized construct.
Clickbait City? Maybe. But to my eyes, the fanfare is legit: the findings are big. That said, I’m not convinced the authors really are trying to debunk executive function, per se. I think they’re saying that the way we’re thinking about it needs to shift.
Here’s my read of it. Andreas Demetriou, et al., found that executive function isn’t best understood as a set of skills. Instead, the authors show that they have identified a single meaning-making core lying at the root of all, something they call AACog, short for relational Alignment (matching and relating); Abstraction (seeing patterns); and Cognizance (monitoring while keeping a goal in mind). You can also think of it as a boatload of relational integration with a rainbow of metacognition shining down on it.
To get there, the study’s authors regressed executive function skills to find the core essence of executive function, or, as they call it, a general executive function factor (gEF). Then they compared gEF to their AACog conceptualization. And the result was an almost perfect correlation, meaning that, according to their work, gEF and AACog are basically the same thing.
Let’s move from abstract to concrete here. Okay, so the authors offered up this to help people see AACog at work in daily life. And I quote, “Searching for a specific racing toy car among several toy cars on the floor, looking for a specific shape, ignoring same-color cars, knowing when to re-initiate search and when to stop (a car matching the search-guiding mental image of the car is spotted) is an example of AACog in a child’s everyday activity.”3
Need more relevance? You can replace toy car with important bill. Or actually with anything. All of us are doing these alignment, abstraction, and cognizance things all day long as we clean up, plan our day, and communicate with those around us. We are holding a goal in mind, looking around for what matches, analyzing what we’re seeing to make helpful patterns, reflecting on our experience, and revising as necessary. That’s AACog at your service.
Demetriou, et al.’s research shows AACog’s relationship to executive function to be so solidly correlated that it earns an equal sign. The authors even bore this out with measures that looked at the relationship from both sides: a child’s AACog predicts their executive function skills, and their executive function skill predicts their AACog abilities.
This is feeling pretty legit. I mean, reason to lose your mind a bit, no?
So what does all of this mean?
With findings this promising, I expect that AACog is here to stay, at least for a while, until the field grows and we learn more, and a new window of insight opens up. But for now, this new information is plenty to work with. The way I understand it, these executive functions sit on top of this foundational AACog underpinning of relational integration (relating/finding patterns/monitoring). As a result, my find-the-root-and-work-there clinical brain says there’s work to be done down deep. Let’s dream a bit.
To get you back grounded in daily life of this again, think back to that example of the child looking for a specific car toy. He has the alignment to know what he’s looking for; he has the abstraction to rule cars in and out of his search; and he has the cognizance to monitor the search process.
Now imagine this kid’s pal shows up and is struggling. We work our magic and shore up what’s weak in Kid #2’s AACog. Now, with skills in identifying relationships and the metacognitive ability to talk about them, Kid #2 is standing on solid ground. Okay, time to teach him some executive function skills, but as we do, notice this: our task at hand just got a lot easier, or maybe disappeared. Let’s teach him to initiate, if we even need to; he already sees the pattern, so he knows where to start. Let’s teach him to be flexible, if we even need to; he knows the patterns, so he knows where the inflection point is that will allow him to shift. Let’s teach him to monitor, if we even need to; he has metacognitive awareness about his process, so he knows where he’s at.
If we treat the root, it’s easier for things to grow.
My connection to this all:
One of the great things about training to be a speech-language pathologist is that you are taught to get down to the root cause of things, with the thinking being that if you can find the root, you can treat the issue at its source and build up from there.
Early in my years doing clinical work in this speech-language field, it became clear that I needed to get to the bottom of executive function, primarily because I had a long personal history of struggling with organization and realized that if I needed to explain it to others, I needed to be able to explain it to myself.
It took lots of digging, creating, stewing, and refining, but the time was well spent. I found what I viewed as the root of executive function, the foundational building blocks, and developed a way to teach them. This new understanding helped me find structure in everything around me and gave me confidence in doing so. So I share it, and it has done the same for others.
This is where it gets exciting. These foundational building blocks I found in this clinical setting (i.e., grouping and labeling, finding patterns among the groups, and metacognition) fall right into line with the meaning-making core found in the research setting (i.e., alignment, abstraction, and cognizance). It all is making so much sense.
That’s enough for right now, but I’ll write more about this practice/research connection, focusing more on the approach I created, in my next post. Then I’ll get back to lighter posts, I promise. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Being in the weeds is so much fun.
Demetriou, A., Kazali, E., Spanoudis, G., Makris, N., & Kazi, S. (2024). Executive function: Debunking an overprized construct. Developmental Review, 74, 101168. Here is an open-source version of it, too.
I thought you might be curious. Here’s not an exhaustive list of executive function skills, but something to get you started: working memory (verbal and visual); inhibitory control; cognitive flexibility; planning; organization; task initiation; goal-directed persistence; time management; prioritization; sequencing; task monitoring; self-monitoring; error detection and correction; decision making; metacognition; emotional regulation; stress tolerance; perspective taking; sustained attention; selective attention; shifting attention; verbal retrieval; task analysis; strategy selection; strategy implementation; generalization; initiation; goal formation; goal maintenance; goal monitoring; balancing competing demands; task shifting with rule maintenance; motivation regulation.
Here’s the alignment: I’m looking for this toy car; and the abstraction: Many of these things are cars, but they are not what I am looking for; and the cognizance: I’m going to keep going here until, voila!,I found what I was looking for.
I'm geeking out with this right now, Kim! Love it.