Tools for Improving Executive Functioning?

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I've been trying to find ways to improve my executive functioning. I don't understand why there isn't any service offered that can help us stay organized, considering that the majority of people with ASD have executive functioning difficulties.

Some things me and my partner struggle with are placing objects, especially small ones like important papers and cards, in random places and then spending hours looking for them. We also often buy fresh food and it stays in the fridge for weeks and goes bad, because it is not immediately in the visual field so it gets neglected. I hate that so much because I'm concerned about the environment and the effort that goes into producing food, so I don't condone wasteful practices. I wanted to try out a PECS-type approach with visual fridge magnets, but that would mean printing them up, putting magnets on them, and the whole process of figuring out how to do that just made me too overwhelmed. Also, for forgetting to do certain things, like washing hair while taking a shower, I was thinking of a social story-type of thing laminated and put in the shower. Again, not sure whom to ask to do something like this, having an extremely busy schedule on my hands. Right now, I manage to function by either spending too much money buying things I already have somewhere (which means not using resources properly) and also often end up making excuses for not finding things or being late places as a result of mismanaging my time.

Two things I have been thinking about:
- I've read somewhere about how people with Alzheimer's often have their stuff arranged in a certain way, so that everything is visual and within their reach.
- My prof told me today about a program called "Goal Management Training" that is typically used with patients who have frontal lobe injury. Here's some info on it: http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT00857207

Do any of you use techniques like this?

Hi Mathgirl,

I have issues with these as well. Maybe this will help. When we were growing up my family would have special boxes for various items because our parents struggled with finding stuff: for example 'in' and 'out' things for mail in the front room, a library book zone in the same area, a calculator and school supply box on one side of the meal table, file cabinets for not just papers but floppy disks especially, and a miscellaneous box in the front room for the cards you have mentioned.

My brother and I were given individual filing cabinets in our youth, indexed by date and topic and color coded, for drawings and other 'fun stuff'. Sometimes boxes of floppy disks went whole into the big olive colored folders. We had to digitize things periodically to prevent 'paper buildup' and I remember having to winnow down piles of drawings before we got a scanner.

Mom would index things weekly and print out a list of items that were floating around, book due dates and stuff, and post them on the fridge. These would be backed up on the computers in case the physical list got lost. Also she randomly audited our file cabinets so we had an incentive to keep them organized. It is good to enlist a friend or relative to help you do this. Now I have these habits, for myself, though my mom would be shocked at the state of my filing cabinet and my computer (she used to audit our hard drives for evidence of folder 'messiness', whether it had been defragged recently and whatnot).

In terms of the food thing I find that keeping a spreadsheet with purchase dates, sorting by dates so that the oldest food is on top, and planning meals a week in advance helps. My boyfriend has issues with the food going bad thing and I used to be very mad at him, until we started that. Once a week cooking for suppers is also essential in our house. Usually if I buy a large volume of vegetables, like cabbage in November, I will cut, blanch and freeze them. I also freeze fish and other items that are prone to decay, in wax paper.

One word of advice is that vegetables of any sort should never be kept in plastic. If you have gotten a large bag of potatoes, carrots or apples, it is warm outside, and they are in plastic with either no or few holes, then they should be taken out and put in a net bag or more holes should be poked in the plastic - on the top and bottom. Or, they should be taken out and put in the drawer naked. If it is summer, then I would always keep potatoes and cabbages in drawers as opposed to near a doorway or in a cellar / backyard storage box.

Laminating the steps for a shower and posting them in the shower is a great idea! We posted a list of air conditioner protocol next to the air conditioner. Instead of getting fridge magnets how about pasting papers on the fridge with tape? The PECS style thing can be done with Microsoft Word and just printing and pasting on walls, wherever.

HTH.

Hi, thank you for replying to my post! I’ve read your reply earlier on, just haven’t had time to respond. You have excellent organization tips – I’ll refer to these ideas and see if I can implement something similar. I’ll need some materials, as I don’t have boxes like that; there’s also an issue of space because our apartment is tiny.

As I don’t typically spend a lot of time in front of the computer, and when I do, schoolwork or WP instantly distracts me, it would be very difficult to regularly maintain a spreadsheet. I also have trouble reading long passages of text off the computer screen – somehow, it’s a huge strain on my eyes and they start saccading more than usual, leading to excessive distractibility.

For the fridge magnets, I would like to laminate/magnet them because we buy new foods sometimes or the food gets finished, so the sign would need to be taken off the fridge and put somewhere. Taping is a pain because tape sticks onto things and printing it off every time would be time-consuming as well as wasteful in terms of ink. I was imagining having small pictures of food items with magnets to signal food that’s in the fridge, and once it’s finished, taking off the magnet and putting it into a basket/box. Thanks for the tip about vegetables… I never knew that. I don’t understand, then, why the vegetables are sold in Ziploc bags without any holes – I thought that was done to preserve freshness, but it seems now that’s not the case.

My best advice is assume what your trying to do has never been done before. We have a tendency to believe that because it's easy for nts, that somehow it's easy for us.

The fact is we need completely different approaches to very similar problems.

I personally used my textbook from human factors engineering. Basically the idea in a factory, everything has to be directly obvious because people are tired and the jobs are dangerous. This method includes laying out your daily items on a desk like a work bench. Each place has a cutout(on coloured paper for each item). So you know exactly where to put your keys, wallet, phone etc, without even thinking about it.

This is the age of apps so there is an app for that.

http://www.good.is/posts/techmunch-smar ... food-waste



If you don't have a smart phone (which I don't), you might try my designated space method. I always put certain foods in certain places which avoids having to scan the whole fridge. For instance, leftovers always go on the middle shelf in the front. Eggs go on the left side of the bottom shelf. Yogurt goes on the right side of the bottom shelf. Milk goes on the left side of the top shelf. Bread goes directly behind the eggs. And so on. I find this very helpful in avoiding waste because it doesn't require you to scan the whole visual field of the fridge to know if you are out of something. You just look in that one space. My daughter (who is autistic) adapted to this system instantly and was soon able to get her own food from the fridge. Aopparently what had been stopping her before was the haphazard nature of where everything was so she couldn't find stuff. Wish I'd thought to do this sooner.

I do have a smartphone and I had no clue there were apps for these things! I'll look into these apps after I'm done with my exams. These are excellent ideas... thanks! The only thing I struggle with it not seeing things in the fridge when they are behind other things, but I suppose once the routine is set, it would probably become much easier.

It might also be difficult to set routines if my partner won't follow them, but I'll check out the apps and see if they help.

Could you write up a weekly meal plan before buying your fresh food and then leave it on the fridge as a reminder of what to cook each day and what to eat?