Page 52 - Strength-Based Approach to Executive Function Skills

Helping yourself with Thinking

Speed skills:

If you are a slower, stronger thinker, there are

lots of things that can help:

What you can do to help yourself

1. Prepare to be at your best before you start – work out

what you need to feel good. Check the blue physical and

green emotional Needs cards – which might be a problem for

you and stop you from feeling good and focusing well? What

could you do to improve them?

2. Ask people to slow down if the information

is given too fast for you to process it. Say:

“Can you slow down please - I do better when

I’m given more time to process information.”

If you are worried about this, work with adults you trust to

work out ways you can let people know your needs which

feel ok for you.

3. Ask people to repeat what they have said and give it to

you in chunks of 3 or less.

4. Practise working faster – you can improve Thinking Speed

with practice. Time yourself doing tasks then work at

reducing the time by 10 seconds each time. Track your

progress over time.

5. Give yourself time reminders – set alarms.

6. Take regular breaks – processing speed gets slower as our

brain gets tired so work out ways to re-energise regularly. 52