Page 16 - The Changing Chances Strength Based Approach to Control Centre Skills (Executive Function Skills) MASTER 2020

Helping you to think and process information well:

If you are a slower, stronger thinker, there are lots of things that can help:

How adults can help you What you can do to help yourself
Slow and clear: ask people to speak slowly and If we don’t feel good physically and
clearly. emotionally, our Thinking Speed will
be slower, so …
Thinking Time: ask for extra thinking time – Prepare to be at your best before you start
work out how long you normally need and ask for – work out what you need to feel good in
that much at least. the class. Check the blue physical and green
emotional Needs cards – which might be a
Preview and Practice: Ask for lots of time for problem for you and stop you from feeling
pre-learning and practice for any tasks which will good and focusing well? What could you do
require quick fire thinking. This will help you to to improve them?
learn the information so well that it comes to your
mind easily and is automatic. Ask people to slow down if the information
is being given too fast for you to process it.
Time reminders: Ask people to let you know how Say: “Can you slow down please - I do
long you have to complete a task. Ask for regular better when I’m given more time to process
time reminders or set yourself reminders. information.”

Less is more: ask adults to keep the same level If you are worried about this, work with
of challenge and difficulty for you but give you less adults you trust to work out ways you can
to do e.g. in maths – keep the calculations the let people know your needs which you feel
same difficulty but give you 5 instead of 10 to ok about.
complete. Ask people to repeat what they have said
and give it to you in chunks of 3 or less.
Reduce the ‘cognitive load’ of tasks – the
number of different things you have to think about Practise working faster – you can improve
all at once. (We know that when ‘cognitive load’ is Thinking Speed with practice. Time yourself
greater, it can really slow a person’s doing tasks and work at reducing the time
thinking speed). by 10 seconds. Track your progress over
time.
Clear and brief: ask for information in a clear,
organised way with visual supports such as simple Give yourself time reminders – set alarms.
diagrams or pictures.
Take regular breaks – our processing speed
Chunked: ask for information and instructions in gets slower as our brain gets tired so work
groups of 3 things to remember or less. out ways to re-energise regularly.

Ask for lots of practical, real examples.

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