Hi, my name is Stephanie, and today I want to talk to you about the executive function
planning. Before we begin, I do want to note that having issues with executive functioning is not
exclusive to autism. According to a 2017 paper, the planning skill demands the mental anticipation
and evaluation of future actions and of their resulting consequences and it is crucial in
everyday life. A simpler definition comes from understood.org: planning is the ability to set
a goal, think of the steps needed to achieve it, and decide on the order of the steps. So,
I think most people have a general concept of what planning is. This function does require a lot of
the other functions, however, and for this reason sometimes it is considered to be a higher order
executive function. So, when we plan something, we're going to plan, like, what do we want to do,
how are we going to do that, what are the steps, what are the order of the steps,
and you also kind of think of what the outcome is. Like, if I'm planning to do this,
is it going to get the outcome that I want it to? That's the reason you plan on something,
right? If you're not the best at planning, you might not always foresee the outcomes of things
or not really know what order to put steps into or wait till the last second to try to finish stuff
because you just didn't really foresee how things would play out and how you would go about things.
So, there's actually a test that is used to assess some of the executive functions in general,
but definitely focuses on planning, and that is called the Tower of London. Although there are
many variations, basically, it has to do with pegs and beads. The participant is given a start set
and they are asked to make their set look like the test set while following a certain set of rules,
such as the following: each pegs can accommodate a different number of beads as follows:
the first peg (the shortest) one bead, the second, or the medium peg, two beads,
and the third (the longest) three beads. Just one bead might be moved at a time, thus a bead can be
moved only if the previous one has been placed on one of the pegs. Three, the beads cannot be
placed outside the pegs. For example, on the table or on the Tower of London board. And number four,
the number of allowed moves, which is printed in the bottom part of the picture,
must be respected. There are many factors that get recorded, such as how many times it took them to
get the set right in the allowed amount of moves, if they broke the rules, stuff like that to be
able to help measure various areas of executive functioning. Planning is one of those measures.
Better planning should ultimately result in more accuracy while maintaining the rules. Poor
planning skills tend to become more apparent the older someone gets, especially when we're
talking about children moving into adolescence. This is typically because, in school, when you
have smaller children, teachers are used to breaking things up into steps for the children.
They're used to accommodating their executive function needs and their low skills in these
areas. However, once you get older, things begin to emphasize this independent mode
of study where you are going to have to plan out your time to do your homework, and you are going
to have to figure out how you're going to get certain projects done and what you need to do
to make the things happen. And this is where someone who has deficits in this area
will start to really, really fall behind, and it will be pretty obvious because they just
can't seem to figure out the whole planning thing. Now, this can be especially difficult
for autistic people because we tend to have issues with flexible thinking. So, if our plan doesn't go
exactly the way we want it to or our idea won't result in what we want it to, we can sometimes
have difficulty coming up with workarounds or things that are okay as alternatives because
we have trouble being flexible in that way. So, outside help and modeling can really help assist
people who have issues with planning. Asking for help through the entire process can help
someone see the process of planning and have that modeled for them and kind of lay out a template
of sorts for them to be able to understand how to do this for themselves the next time around,
even though it's not always as wonderful as showing someone one time how to do this. It
is a skill that is built over time. Helping people understand how to mark down deadlines
and put things in a calendar and write those sorts of things out visually and see, maybe,
if their plan is going to work time wise, etc., can help as well. It teaches them, basically,
that they can do that themselves, too, and this does take support and reasoning. You're going
to have to work through why did this plan not work the last time? Why should we do it this way
or that way? How are we going to get the outcome that we want, etc. There is a lot to planning, and
someone who has issues with executive functioning may need a lot of support working through that
process. In theory, strengthening the other executive functions can, in turn, help strengthen
planning since it does rely on many of the other functions. Now, be sure to check the description
box out for the references. You can read more about this as well as maybe find some more tips.
If you enjoyed this video, found it informational, informative, or helpful in some way,
go ahead and hit that like button, and let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Also, if you want to share any tips on planning as well, I think that would be cool to give people
more resources. So, if you want to do that or if you just want to share your thoughts, that's
fine as well. If you're interested in autism related videos from me, you can go ahead and
hit that subscribe button. I try to upload every Thursday at 4 pm central standard time except for
the last Thursday of the month, in which I try to go live with you all. Thank you to everyone
who supports me here on YouTube as YouTube channel members, those who give through Kofi,
my patrons on Patreon, and a special thank you to my spazz tier patron, Phillip Noah. Thank you so
much for watching! I hope you have a wonderful week, and I'll see you in my next video. Bye!