We chat with Jenny an ADHD and Autism Consultant and Executive Function Coach

Episode Highlights

Today, on SEND Tutoring’s podcast we welcomed Jenny Sandler, who is an autism and ADHD educator, consultant, and executive function coach.

Jenny is a specialist autism and ADHD educator, consultant, and advisor supporting children, parents, and schools. She has two decades of experience and holds a Master of Education in Autism in Children from the University of Birmingham and a Master of Arts in Literacy Learning and Difficulties from the Institute of Education, University of London. In addition, Jenny holds an Executive Function coaching certification and has undergone ADHD training, enabling her to coach secondary school pupils and help them reach their goals by supporting their academic workload, social lives, priorities, and time management. Jenny’s understanding of executive functioning underpins her work as an autism and ADHD parent and school consultant.

The questions we sent ahead:

1. What is an executive functioning coach? And how does it link to how you consult?

2. What are executive functioning skills and can you provide some examples?

3. What are some of the strategies used to implement to support weak memory, can you provide some examples?

Jenny explained what executive functioning was and split it into three components: Working memory, Cognitive Flexibility, and Inhibitory Control.

Working memory has to do with holding something else in our brains whilst we work something out, for instance working out a times table question and following a logical process whilst applying it to a new question.

Cognitive Flexibility refers to multitasking and Inhibitory Control to repressing thoughts which is underdeveloped in children and often results in meltdowns.

As usual, we ran out of time, but Jenny said she would come back in the future!

If you have any questions on the topics discussed in this podcast, or are looking for help finding a specialist one-to-one tutor for your child, book a free consultation with us today, we’ll be happy to help.