Handbook of Executive Functioning

Planning. Attention. Memory. Self-regulation. These and other core cognitive and behavioral operations of daily life comprise what we know as executive functioning (EF). But despite all we know, the concept has engendered multiple, often conflicting definitions and its components are sometimes loosely defined and poorly understood.

The Handbook of Executive Functioning cuts through the confusion, analyzing both the whole and its parts in comprehensive, practical detail for scholar and clinician alike. Background chapters examine influential models of EF, tour the brain geography of the executive system and pose salient developmental questions. A section on practical implications relates early deficits in executive functioning to ADD and other disorders in children and considers autism and later-life dementias from an EF standpoint. Further chapters weigh the merits of widely used instruments for assessing executive functioning and review interventions for its enhancement, with special emphasis on children and adolescents.

Featured in the Handbook:

• The development of hot and cool executive function in childhood and adolescence.
• A review of the use of executive function tasks in externalizing and internalizing disorders.
• Executive functioning as a mediator of age-related cognitive decline in adults.
• Treatment integrity in interventions that target executive function.
• Supporting and strengthening working memory in the classroom to enhance executive functioning.

The Handbook of Executive Functioning is an essential resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners and graduate students in clinical child, school and educational psychology; child and adolescent psychiatry; neurobiology; developmental psychology; rehabilitation medicine/therapy and social work.

Sam Goldstein, Ph.D., is a doctoral level psychologist with areas of study in school psychology, child development and neuropsychology. He is licensed as a psychologist and certified as a developmental disabilities evaluator in the State of Utah. Dr. Goldstein is a Fellow in the National Academy of Neuropsychology and American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine. Dr. Goldstein is an Assistant Clinical Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry. Since 1980, Dr. Goldstein has worked in a private practice setting as the Director of a multidisciplinary team, providing evaluation, case management and treatment services for children and adults with histories of neurological disease and trauma, autism, learning disability, adjustment difficulties and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Dr. Goldstein is on staff at the University Neuropsychiatric Institute. He has served as a member of the Children’s Hospital Craniofacial Team. He has also been a member of the Developmental Disabilities Clinic in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Utah Medical School.

Dr. Goldstein has authored, co-authored or edited 42 clinical and trade publications, including 16 text books dealing with managing children's behavior in the classroom, genetics, autism, attention disorders, resilience and adult learning disabilities. With Barbara Ingersoll, Ph.D., he has co-authored texts dealing with controversial treatments for children’s learning and attention problems and childhood depression. With Anne Teeter Ellison, he has authored Clinician’s Guide to Adult ADHD: Assessment and Intervention. With Nancy Mather, Ph.D., he has completed 3 texts for teachers and parents concerning behavioral and educational issues. With Michael Goldstein, M.D., he has completed two texts on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He has edited 3 texts with Cecil Reynolds, Ph.D., on neurodevelopmental and genetic disorders in children. With Robert Brooks, Ph.D., he has authored 12 texts including, Handbook of Resilience in Children first and second editions, Understanding and Managing Children’s Classroom Behavior – 2^nd Edition, Raising Resilient Children, Nurturing Resilience in Our Children, Seven Steps to Help Children Worry Less, Seven Steps to Anger Management, The Power of Resilience, Raising a Self-Disciplined Child and Raising Resilient Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. With Jack Naglieri and he has authored a number of texts on autism, assessment of Intelligence and Executive Functioning. He has co-authored a parent training program and is currently completing a number of additional texts on resilience, intelligence and genetics. Dr. Goldstein is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Attention Disorders and serves on 6 Editorial Boards. He is also the Co-Editor of the Encyclopedia of Child Development and Behavior.

With Jack Naglieri, Ph.D., Dr. Goldstein is the co-author of the Autism Spectrum Rating Scales, Comprehensive Executive Functioning Inventory, Rating Scales of Impairment and the Cognitive Assessment System – 2^nd Edition.

Dr. Goldstein, a knowledgeable and entertaining speaker, has lectured extensively on a national and international basis to thousands of professionals and parents concerning attention disorders in children, resilience, depression, adjustment and developmental impairments, autism and assessment of brain dysfunction.

Jack A. Naglieri, Ph.D., is a Research Professor at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, Senior Research Scientist at the Devereux Center for Resilient Children and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. He is a Fellow of APA Divisions 15 and 16, recipient of the 2001 Senior Scientist Award for APA Division 16 and the 2011 Italian American Psychology Assembly Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology, holds a Diplomat