Hi, my name is Stephanie and today I want to talk to you about the executive
function inhibition. This is basically the opposite of the last executive
function I went over on this channel, which was initiation. Really quickly, I
would like to thank my patrons and viewers for both suggesting and
voting on this particular topic. And really quickly, I would like to shout out
my merch: autism isn't a dirty word, and you can get that design and others at my
merch shop. The link is in the description. Now, before I get further
into it, I just want to explain that anyone can have issues with executive
functioning. One source suggests that about half the population has some sort
of issue with some of their executive functions, and of course, executive
functioning issues are very common in ADHD and autism. You can have one without
the other, doesn't mean that if you have executive functioning issues that you
have ADHD or you have autism and vice versa. Much of the information in today's
video is going to be coming from an article by Adele Diamond on executive
functioning. As always, that information, the reference link will be in the
description box for you to check out. In this article, inhibitory control is
defined as being able to control one's attention, behavior, thoughts, and/or
emotions to override a strong internal predisposition or external lure, and
instead do what's more appropriate or needed. So, inhibitory control of
attention helps us to selectively attend on the correct thing or the thing that
we want to focus on at the moment. This is an example that I commonly hear
autistics struggle with, which is like trying to hear the person talking in
front of you, but accidentally just following along with the conversation of
someone else over here. And you can't filter these people out, and so your
attention is on this conversation, and you're trying to engage with the
conversation that's supposed to be happening between you and this other
person. They're talking and all you can hear is this back and forth. That is an
issue with your inhibition and your control of selective attention.
Now, this doesn't just apply to attending outward things. This inhibitory
control can also deal with your internal thoughts. So, being able to rein in your
thought pattern or what you're thinking about and not go down all these rabbit
trails and all these other things and continue going when you should be coming
back to that topic or that conversation or whatever that is you're supposed to
be focusing on outwardly and internally. Of course, self-control is considered a
part of inhibitory control. I think self-control is a pretty well
understood concept. This can help you from not eating that other piece of
candy or stealing a toy or reflexively hitting someone for doing something you
didn't like or that was, you know, uncomfortable. Personal, personal thought
here. This may be why some people find autistic children more difficult to
handle, because part of autism is a different kind of time line for
development, and so if an autistic child already is going to have some deficits
in ... inhibition. Hm-hmm. And they're maybe not developing at the same rate as
their typically developing peers, they may have more trouble not stealing
someone's toy or hitting someone if they do something or stealing their snack or
their drink or something like that, where maybe the caregiver doesn't expect that
behavior to happen that often at that age range. That's just a personal thought.
I think that this might kind of feed into that thought and stereotype that
autistic people are just really selfish, especially autistic children, I've seen
that as a description where because they don't, like, attend to other people the
way that people feel like they should, that they're just selfish and in their own
world and don't care about anybody else. Which is ... [sighs] Not, not a great stereotype. So,
inhibitory control has to also do with being able to, like, wait your turn or
delay gratification, controlling your emotions, not blurting out something ...
before thinking it through or not jumping to a conclusion, like, the first
conclusion you come to in a situation, as well as being able to stay on task. Now, I
can attest to the issue of, like, blurting things out, because when something, like,
enters my mind, it just becomes, like, everything. And if I find it interesting
and I wanted to share it or it's important for some reason in my world,
it's really hard to wait my turn and not just interrupt, and sometimes it comes
out of my mouth without my permission. Sometimes my my brain and my mouth
connect in ways they shouldn't. So, that is an issue with inhibition. I tend to be
a person who likes to really think through things before speaking, but when
it's not something that, like, really matters, a lot of the time, it's just
really hard for me to keep it to myself and wait my turn, and it feels like if I
don't say it right now, it's going to leave and then I won't be able to say it.
Or that, like, the moment will pass even though a lot of times it would be just
fine to wait till later, and if I think of it late,r a lot of
times, it doesn't feel as important as it did in that moment for whatever reason.
It's pretty weird. And while I'm trying to keep my mouth from blurting out
things out of turn, a lot of times, there are outward manifestations of this
happening. So, like, I'll like bubble mouth, which I've been told is not flattering.
So, there you go. And I'll bounce or maybe flail around some because I have, ugh! I'm
having such a hard time not saying the thing, but it's in there. It's in my brain
and I just need to say it! Inhibition also has a lot to do with suppressing irrelevant
information and focusing on relevant information, which may be why, a lot of
times, autistics have difficulty taking notes, because we aren't really good at
pulling out, at least in the moment, the information that's important from what's
being said to be able to, like, just write that down. We tend to want to, like, write
word-for-word what was said because we are having trouble taking what's
important from the information being presented to us and that's an
inhibition issue, as well. Some also suggest that special interests or deep
dives can be considered an issue with inhibition, which I can pretty much agree
on because, technically, a well-structured day doesn't include you going on a
rabbit hole for 8 hours and not eating and forgetting that you need to go to
the bathroom and not doing the things you're supposed to do. [laughs] So, you're kind of
lacking that self-control to, like, come off of the thing and it's really hard,
because it's like it becomes your world. It becomes everything you're thinking
about and you're seeing all the things and you just got to get there, and so
your inhibition is lacking to say, okay, now we need to, you know, we need, we need to
stop. We need to cut-off. We can take a break. Those sorts of things are
difficult. So, now that we understand what a deficiency in inhibition looks like,
how can we help it? So, it looks like there are some options for children,
especially, like Montessori learning specifically for ages 3 to 6 and
apparently not outside that range. I'm not sure on all the reasons why it's that
specific, but if you check out the resource, it will kind of lead you on the
trail if you want to figure out some of that stuff for yourself. Some other
things that I saw mentioned to kind of help with inhibition and executive
functions overall, and this is something you're going to see a lot of times, that
executive functions, a lot of times, are very intertwined and they work together
a lot. So, a lot of times, something might not be directed specifically at what you're
wanting to improve. It might improve a variety of executive functions. So, it
might help that one particular thing that you have an issue with. But some
things I found mentioned a lot were task switching, which I'm not a hundred
percent ... what that means, because I know I'm not great at task switching. [laughs]
I don't know if that's, like, assistance in switching tasks and then starting,
kind of, getting used to, like, being able to switch. I don't know. That's something
you might want to look into. And specifically traditional, not modern,
martial arts apparently are tied to really helping executive function and
specifically inhibition. Apparently, there's something
about the character-building portion mixed with physical activity and
mindfulness that helps, apparently. Music is supposed to be
helpful for all of your executive functions, including inhibition, which I
find wonderful because I really like music. Including some video gaming, some
video gaming, can be helpful for inhibition as long as, of course, it's not
taking up your whole entire day in life and you're not using it as something
that you're lacking inhibition to be able to stop and do something else and
have a well-rounded day. Apparently, getting more sleep, of course, can help
inhibition. There was a study that extending the amount of sleep that some
children got helped improve inhibition for them about 13%, so, I mean, that's
something. Honestly, that's about all I could get straight-answer-wise regarding
what would help improve specifically inhibition when it came to executive
functioning. I will link a resource from Harvard that is supposed to be able to
target different executive functions for different age groups. So, they're, like,
different activities or whatever. I'll link that in the description box if you
want to check that out, and again, a lot of times, different activities can help,
like, groupings of executive functions because they are pretty interconnected.
Anyway, thank you so much for watching. If you found this video helpful,
informational, etc., go ahead and hit that like button. Let me know your thoughts in
the comments below, if you have issues with inhibition, if you have found
anything to be helpful, and if you have any resources to help us work on
inhibition, let everybody know in the comments below. If you want to hear more
autism-related content from me, you can hit that subscribe button. I upload to
this channel every Thursday at 4:00 p.m. Central Standard to the best of my
ability. I hope that you're having a wonderful week, and I'll talk to you in
my next video. Bye!