De Facto Leaders

I’m often asked if I can create an “executive functioning lesson plan” that a clinician could do within a 20-minute therapy session with a student or group of students. 

I understand why people ask me for things like this. This traditional “pull-out” model of therapy is what many clinicians have been taught in our preservice training, and it’s often what’s focused on in professional development for clinicians. 

This model works well for many skills. It also plays a part in executive functioning intervention. But it’s not enough. 

Doing “executive functioning” lesson plans without some type of support plan in place for other settings would be like a soccer player doing drills and conditioning without ever playing soccer. 

Does the right isolated work provide support and a foundation? Yes. 

Is it necessary? Also yes.

But is it enough on its own, without direct application in the situation when those skills will be needed? Absolutely not. 

I know school teams are overwhelmed, and embedding support across a students’ day requires systems and collaboration that aren’t often in place in many schools (yet). 

It’s a lot to ask, but it’s what needs to happen. And with the right plan, it’s possible-which is what I show school leaders how to do in the School of Clinical Leadership. 

That’s why in this second episode in my series on “Five Skills to Create Your Executive Functioning Implementation Framework”, I cover the second skill: Self Talk

✅ The two distinct types of self-talk: Strategy self-talk and Self-belief self-talk

✅ How self-talk integrates with other executive functions like time perception, future pacing, and episodic memory

✅ The connection between self-talk and principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—and how to embed those principles into daily routines, not just therapy rooms

✅ Why explicit instruction and modeling of self-talk helps students shift from reactive to proactive problem-solving

✅ How deficits in self-talk can derail time management, task initiation, and flexible thinking—despite external supports

✅ How to start working on self-talk with your students right away-even if you haven’t built strong team collaboration systems yet.

In this episode, I mentioned my upcoming free live virtual training hosted by Parallel Learning that’s coming up on August 14, 2025 from 6:30-8:00 PM EST. It’s called “Executive Functioning: Beyond Checklists and Planners”. 

You’ll earn a free CEU, get to learn about a company that offers remote work opportunities, and get to learn some of the concepts I teach in my paid programs. You can sign up for the training here.

I also mentioned my free training for school leaders who want to create a research-based executive functioning implementation plan for their school teams. You can sign up for the training here. 

We’re thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

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