P. Dawson & R. Guare. (2009). Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary "Executive Skills" Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential

P. Dawson & R. Guare. (2009). Smart But Scattered: The Revolutionary Executive Skills Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential. New York: The Guildford Press. 314 pages. ISBN: 978 1 59385 445 4 If you have stopped by your local bookstore lately, you may have noticed that there is no shortage of self-help books. Parents, in particular, are a vulnerable target audience for quasi-scientific writers aiming to offer anything from childrearing advice to boosting their children's brainpower. The book in question, Smart But Scattered: The Revolutionary Executive Skills Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential by Peg Dawson and Richard Guare falls within a unique subsection of this self-help/advice giving genre. It promises readers that it show you how you can modify the daily experience of a child aged 4 to 14 to build the that will make it possible for the child to get on track and get things done (p. 2). An attractive sales pitch indeed, without falling into the diagnostic dilemma of targeting only individuals with specific disorders of attention. Instead the authors choose to use a more inclusive approach, where prospective readers may be left wondering who would not benefit from boosting their own powers of self-control and organization, never mind their children's. The authors exude credibility, with Drs. Dawson and Guare reporting to have had over 30 years of field experience working with children who have difficulties with learning, attention, and behavior disorders. Not to diminish Peg Dawson's worthy accomplishments, it is comforting to note that Richard Guare is a neuropsychologist because their book addresses issues of functioning in general, and behavior paradigms in particular. Just so the reader does not confuse executive skills with preparing their child for life in the corporate world, the authors make it clear that they are referring to brain-based that are required for humans to execute, or perform tasks (p. 13). More specifically, their model is subdivided into a set of 11 developmentally and functionally differentiated that range from response inhibition and working memory to flexibility and metacognition. Thankfully you do not need a medical dictionary or neuroscience textbook to gain at least a perfunctory understanding of these 11 skills. The authors provide ample definitions along with corresponding examples to illustrate each skill's meaning and purpose. To simplify matters even more, their model and overall motis operandi for the book is based on two basic principle of learning. The first is an acknowledgement that most individuals have an array of that range from areas considered to be strengths to those that are less well developed or areas of weakness. Second, the authors rationalize that areas of weakness need to be identified so that intervention plans can be developed. The road to success is a combination of building and manipulating the environment so that problems related to skill weaknesses are minimized or prevented. The book itself is divided into three distinct but related sections. The first part promises to explain why you are smart but scattered. A tall order, indeed, but four chapters are all that is needed to identify individual strengths and weaknesses so that one can match the child to the task (p. …

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