Table Of ContentSam Goldstein · Jack A. Naglieri
Editors
Handbook of
Executive
Functioning
Handbook of Executive Functioning
Sam Goldstein (cid:129) Jack A. Naglieri
Editors
Handbook of Executive
Functioning
Editors
Sam Goldstein Jack A. Naglieri
Neurology, Learning Curry School of Education
and Behavior Center University of Virginia
Salt Lake City , UT , USA Charlottesville , VA , USA
ISBN 978-1-4614-8105-8 ISBN 978-1-4614-8106-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-8106-5
Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013949438
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
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I would like to recognize my parents Martha and Sam Naglieri for
teaching how executive function works in the real world. Their
example of considering how to do what you do was exemplary.
Jack A. Naglieri
I am grateful to all of the exceptional colleagues I have had
the good fortune to work with and learn from over my 40-year
career. This text is dedicated to them and to my dear wife
Sherrie from whom I gather strength each day. This work
is also dedicated to the memory of my son-in-law,
Brandon Custer.
Sam Goldstein
We want to thank our authors for their willingness
to contribute to this volume. As always we could not complete
a volume such as this one without the organizational expertise
of Ms. Kathleen Gardner.
Sam Goldstein and Jack A. Naglieri
Management is effi ciency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership
determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.
Stephen Covey
Effi ciency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.
Peter Drucker
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin
vii
Pref ace
In 1848, while working with Phineas Gage, a young man who miraculously
survived a severe injury to his brain, physician John Martyn Harlow observed
that Gage had lost the balance between his “intellectual faculties and animal
propensities.” He had diffi culty making plans and his loss of control led him
to be disrespectful and profane. Gage cared little as to how his behavior and
actions affected others. He went from being a model railroad foreman to an
out-of-work stable hand and eventually 12 years after his injury passing away
at the age of 36 following a series of seizures.
It is now well accepted that the injury Gage suffered adversely impacted
the frontal lobes governing the effi cient operation of his brain. In the last 50
years, an interest in this part of the brain and its operation has come to the
forefront for many researchers and clinicians. The frontal lobes have become
increasingly conceptualized as a governor or executive. In the 1890s,
Oppenheim associated personality changes with the orbital and mesial frontal
lobes (Oppenheim 1890, 1891). The term “executive” was used some 40
years ago by Luria as he described the functions of the frontal lobes or his
third functional unit as serving an executive role (Luria, 1980). Executive
functioning has come to represent a number of mental processes which allows
individuals to use thought to govern behavior and to perform complex activi-
ties involving planning, organizing, strategizing, controlling, and sustaining
attention and self-management. Executive dysfunction has been documented
in a diversity of conditions, including dementia, traumatic brain injury, white
matter lesions, borderline personality disorder, substance abuse, multiple sys-
tem atrophy, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, autism, attention defi cit
hyperactivity disorder, progressive supranuclear palsy, CADASIL, and
Korsakoff syndrome. Ironically, individuals experiencing executive function
problems, the result of either atypical development or trauma, often retain
their memory and capacity to master academic skills but they struggle how to
effi ciently use what they know. They are inconsistent, unpredictable, and
often poorly self-governed. They are ineffi cient in their ability to make plans,
keep track of time, evaluate their behavior, and socialize appropriately.
Typically they struggle in many critical aspects of life.
In this textbook, we have sought to bring together the leading theoreti-
cians, researchers, and clinical practitioners involved with the scientifi c
examination, assessment, and clinical and educational application of executive
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