Do you ever wonder why neurodiverse kids struggle with evaluating their strengths or challenges, understanding how their brains work and creating steps for self-improvement? Metacognition is the awareness and understanding of your own thinking and thought processes and, as the last executive functioning skill to coalesce (in the mid to late twenties), it’s often very challenging for alternative learners. Put simply, it’s a way to manage and understand your thinking. Metacognition allows someone to connect the dots, see the big picture, monitor their work and assess their progress. It ultimately helps with performance, task completion and learning. This self-awareness assists with time management, planning, focus and other skills that can be daunting for neurodiverse children and teens. With practice and time, you can help your student learn the skills needed to apply metacognition and improve problem solving.

Metacognition is a process related to self-awareness and is considered a key executive functioning skill because it governs behavioral output and is tied to emotional control. It also influences your ability for self-regulation and self-evaluation. People use metacognition to  achieve specific goals, learn what worked well (and what didn’t) and then apply that learning to future tasks. Researchers at University College of…