Executive Dysfunction-I don't know what it means

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Ditto to that. My writing of a to-do list becomes an epic struggle => more procrastination and more elaborate attempts to distract myself from the overwhelming project at hand. Plans are all good. Executing the plan is not so good at the moment. Trying to come up with ways around that. Especially now that I am back in school--need to prioritize and get things done not at the last minute.

Love the "wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey" thing...Describes my own relationship with that nasty 4th dimension rather well (and is from my favorite episode as my avatar suggests). Time seems not to exist when I'm engaged in something really fun (my brothers seem to make time stop) but ticks off ever so slowly at other times. Certainly not the linear progression of time that we were taught in school..

Actually, that just sounds like classic "impairment of social interaction" - which is a core Aspie trait (one of the so-called "triad of impairments").

I am the same. There are people I can talk to at work, because work provides a structure and a topic of conversation. But outside work I have no "guidelines", so to speak, about how to relate to these other people. I have very little in common with them. So I avoid walking to the railway station with them after work because I find it hard to keep up a conversation. I doubt they really want to talk about MY special interests, nor would they want to talk about Aspie things - like this thread. And I probably would be completely uninterested in their topics of conversation ... judging from my limited experience.

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Executive function, for me, means that I have difficulty working myself up to tackle complicated work tasks - I can easily do the simple, mechanical tasks. Also, once I have gotten immersed into a complicated task, I find it almost painful to be interrupted: I have to get all that stuff out of my head, answer the question, then slowly get it all back into my head. I find it really hard to switch complex tasks - I am likely to get instantly angry with interruptions. All this involves things like "working memory": I find it hard to keep things in my mind while I work, and it takes a lot of concentration and effort. So I procrastinate a lot, find simple things to do to put off starting difficult tasks. I have heaps of junk because i can never bring myself to think and make decisions about what to do with stuff ... so it sits around and builds up.

Umm, this gives me the impression that "executive function" is a mix of very different things (some of them largely conflictual - see "Able to keep focus" and "Easily can shift attention") - what means that someone can be "executive dysfunctional" in very different ways.

By what have read, "executive function" is basically "applied thinking", the capacity to think about and plan your actions, and change the plans if required, instead of working in "autopilot".

Those things describe me to a T. The biggest one for me, is emotional control. I'm an overgrown child in that respect. I still don't believe hn a cure.

Good short term memory - I suck at this

Able to keep focus - I suck at this (unless it is a special interest)

Easily can shift attention - I suck at this

Juggling different tasks at once - I suck at this

Plan and be able to reach long term goals I REALLY suck at this

Emotional control - not too bad. Better as I get older.

Executive dysfunction is basically - me

Is this an aspie thing or a co-morbid?

These two things don't conflict at all. Ability to keep focus means you can stay focused on one thing without being distracted by random things (the wind, your house settling, your own thoughts, people talking, the television) and the ability to shift attention means you can deliberately take your focus from one thing and move it to another. Both involve regulating your attention as needed.

I have a lot of executive dysfunction. I can't really take care of myself anymore. I am too impulsive. I have no money but I went out and bought all the Tron merchandise at the Disney store. I love Tron and that they made a second one.

Kinda same as the other post:

Good short term memory- I suck at this

Able to keep focus- I'm okay at some stuff and suck on other stuff. If my special interest then I can go overboard and not pay attention to anything else.

Easily can shift attention- I suck at this

Juggling different tasks at once- I suck at this

Plan and be able to reach long term goals-I suck at this

Emotional control- I suck at this

I'm also not sure if this is an Aspie thing but add anxiety to the mix and it kinda explains why I have so much difficulty in functioning in the everyday work world. For whatever reason, I was able to function really well in university/school for the most part except for labs, clinicals, practicals.

It's a frontal lobe dysfunction. I don't think the disorder exists on its own so it's an AS thing because the frontal lobes have to communicate with the rest of the brain and when they don't you get a whole lot of problems.
I don't think you could have an ASD without executive dysfunction.


Thanks for clearing that up. I couldn't get my head around trying to explain it in my own way.

I dream about executive dysfunction sometimes. I spent months reading about ADHD and watching videos and trying to get books and now I'm doing the same with autism and ASD. I am probably going to just start studying neurology at some point.

I should have added that I do think executive dysfunction can be different for different people?

That makes sense. However, I still don't know if I have this.

I have a bad short term memory.

I can keep focus if I like doing the task. (My attention span for boring tasks is about 10 minutes, but it's 5 hours if I like the task)

I don't know if I have problems easily shifting attention or not.

I don't know if I have trouble juggling many tasks at once.

I don't know if I am able to plan or reach long-term goals or not.

I have almost no emotional control.

This is me exactly. People who know me understand that it's near impossible to get my attention if I'm focused on something, but if they manage to pull me out of it, it's almost certain that I'll snap at them.

Here's what I hate about my (lack of) short term memory. Sometimes I work with another person who does the same work that I do. Sometimes she'll know that I'm working on solving a problem, and later she'll ask me how I solved it... and I can't answer because I can't remember. It's really embarrassing.

Thanks for explaining it, by the way. I've never really been clear on what it was either.

I guess so. I mean you could have some executive functioning in some areas but be impaired in other areas.
I think because I have ADHD that it pretty much doesn't exist for me. I have to really try to work around my problems.
Although I don't just shift attention I get bored and jump onto a task, get bored then jump onto another one.

Also, other conditions can impair executive function - PTSD does, although I'm not sure how.

I don't have enough information as to whether my executive function exists, but if I do have both ADHD and AS as I suspect, I am sure this explains just about everything I'm terrible at, and it probably means mine is probably not so much there either. I do the bored->switch task thing too. I'm still figuring out how to work around my problems.

A friend of mine told me the other day that focus is more important than intelligence. She is, however, at the end of first term in medical school and was talking about her willingness to take tests. I tend to agree.

executive function: the ability to multi-task and make decisions under pressure.

ruveyn