THE ARCHITECTURE OF BELONGING
4. Teach Executive Functioning Skills
Many neurodivergent students, especially those with ADHD, struggle with executive functioning, which includes planning, prioritizing, organizing, and completing tasks.
In Late, Lost, and Unprepared, Joyce Cooper- Kahn recommends that these skills be taught in context— at the point of performance— rather than in a separate study skills class. When we provide a graphic organizer or a“ chunked” checklist for an analytical essay, we aren’ t lowering the bar. Instead, we are supporting the executive functioning needed to help a student move to higher-level thinking.
Cooper-Kahn explains that once something becomes a habit, it no longer lives in the part of the brain responsible for executive functioning. In other words, achieving fluency at
“ Often, students who appear fine at school will experience a meltdown at home because they have used every ounce of their cognitive energy simply to appear‘ normal’ at school.” lower-order tasks frees up cognitive room for higher-order tasks. As mundane tasks become automatic, students are able to concentrate their energy on the“ immense world” of ideas.
5. Encourage Authenticity
Neurodivergent students may show up differently when it comes to physical behaviors. For example, some kids with autism stim( rock, flap their hands, or pace). Students with ADHD often fidget. Gifted students may downplay their abilities to fit in. Camouflaging occurs when students mask their natural tendencies to meet neuro-normative expectations.
This masking requires enormous amounts of energy. Often, students who appear fine at school will experience a meltdown at home because they have used every ounce of their cognitive energy simply to appear“ normal” at school.
How can we as educators help ease this burden?
By creating classroom environments that normalize different regulatory strategies. An illustrative example of support: deploy standing desks, bike desks, or bouncy bands for desks, all of which allow students to release excess energy, reduce anxiety, and improve focus. And before correcting what’ s perceived as aberrant behavior, we ought to manifest humility toward our own normative assumptions as well as curiosity about what we perceive as
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CSEE Connections Summer 2026 Page 15