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Executive Function Is Dynamic: Why State Matters for Both Access and Learning
A child’s ability to use executive function skills can change from moment to moment. So can their ability to learn new ones. When we talk about executive function, we often describe skills such as initiation, working memory, planning, organization, flexibility, inhibition, time management, persistence, and metacognition. This can make executive function sound relatively straightforward: identify the skill that is weak, teach a strategy, practice it, and expect improvement. Bu
Cara Koscinski
Aug 75 min read


Executive Function Assessment: Why Traditional Approaches Miss the Bigger Picture
The EFX™ Access Profiler™ is a new participation-focused executive function assessment and clinical reasoning system designed to help professionals better understand executive function access across real-world contexts, supports, regulation states, and participation demands. Beta testing opportunities are opening soon.
Cara Koscinski
Jun 35 min read


Why School-Based OTs, PTs, and SLPs Need to Understand MTSS
When MTSS feels stuck, the issue may not be student motivation; it may be access. This body-first, access-based perspective helps school teams look beneath observable challenges to better support regulation, executive function, and meaningful participation.
Cara Koscinski
May 126 min read


Toileting Starts with Access: A Body-First Approach to Support
Toileting depends on much more than learning a routine. Interoception, regulation, sensory processing, nervous system state, and body awareness all influence how children access toileting participation. This body-first, neurodiversity-affirming approach helps caregivers and professionals better understand the systems underneath daily routines and support children through access, safety, and participation.
Cara Koscinski
May 105 min read


Why Skills Don’t Always Show Up: Understanding Access in Children
Some children can access executive function skills one day and not the next. Access to thinking skills for learning depends on sensory regulation, supportive environment, and interoceptive safety. When the child's roots, trunk, and ground can support the child's needs, the child's canopy grows and fruit can bloom.
Cara Koscinski
May 33 min read


Why Behavior Is Not the Starting Point
When children are referred for support, the referral often begins with a behavioral concern. A child is struggling to follow directions. Another student is leaving the area, shutting down, melting down, refusing to work, or struggling to stay on task. A caregiver or teacher may describe impulsivity, emotional outbursts, avoidance, or dysregulation. The concerns are real, important, and often disruptive to daily life. They deserve support. But the way we understand them matter
Cara Koscinski
Apr 135 min read
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