Kids who lag behind lack crucial skills required to execute such tasks as getting organized, staying focused, and controlling emotions. Here, the authors present an innovative program to strengthen kids' abilities to plan ahead, follow through, and get things done. Includes 40 reproducibles.

Peg Dawson, EdD, is a psychologist who provides professional development training on executive skills for schools and organizations nationally and internationally. She was previously on the staff of the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders at Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Dr. Dawson is a past president of the New Hampshire Association of School Psychologists, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), and the International School Psychology Association, and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from NASP. She is coauthor of bestselling books for general readers, including Smart but Scattered, Smart but Scattered Teens, Smart but Scattered--and Stalled (with a focus on emerging adults), and The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success with a focus on adults). Dr. Dawson is also coauthor of The Work-Smart Academic Planner, Revised Edition, and books for professionals including Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, Third Edition.
Richard Guare, PhD, BCBA-D, is a neuropsychologist and board-certified behavior analyst who frequently consults to schools and agencies on attention and executive skills difficulties. He is former Director of the Center for Learning and Attention Disorders at Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Dr. Guare is coauthor of bestselling books for general readers, including Smart but Scattered, Smart but Scattered Teens, Smart but Scattered--and Stalled (with a focus on emerging adults), and The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success (with a focus on adults). He is also coauthor of The Work-Smart Academic Planner, Revised Edition, and books for professionals including Executive Skills in Children and Adolescents, Third Edition.

Introduction

I. What Makes Your Child Smart But Scattered

1. How Did Such a Smart Kid End Up So Scattered?

2. Identifying Your Child's Strengths and Weaknesses

3. How Your Own Executive Strengths and Weaknesses Matter

4. Matching the Child to the Task

II. Laying a Foundation That Can Help

5. Ten Principles for Improving Your Child's Executive Skills

6. Modifying the Environment: A Is for Antecedent

7. Teaching Executive Skills Directly: B Is for Behavior

8. Motivating Your Child to Learn and Use Executive Skills: C Is for Consequence

III. Putting It All Together

9. Advance Organizer

10. Ready-Made Plans for Teaching Your Child to Complete Daily Routines

11. Building Response Inhibition

12. Enhancing Working Memory

13. Improving Emotional Control

14. Strengthening Sustained Attention

15. Teaching Task Initiation

16. Promoting Planning and Prioritizing

17. Fostering Organization

18. Instilling Time Management

19. Encouraging Flexibility

20. Increasing Goal-Directed Persistence

21. Cultivating Metacognition

22. When What You Do Is Not Enough

23. Working with the School

24. What's Ahead?