Moulding environmental contexts to optimise neurodiverse executive function performance and development: A goodness‐of‐fit account

Abstract

Abstract Executive functions (EFs) provide a top‐down response to stimuli and events in pursuit of a goal. We argue that the extent to which an individual's environment is enriching and a good fit for them influences whether their performance at that moment is towards their upper‐ or lower‐limit of EF ability. We outline the implications of this for interpreting measures of EF. We next argue that a child's sensitivity to the environment, and their caregivers' ability to modulate the environment to improve goodness‐of‐fit, influences the cumulative effects of the environment in shaping that child's actualised EF ability (the performance level shown in day‐to‐day situations), and thus their skill development. We therefore recommend that EF interventions be designed to improve children's actualised EF ability by improving their day‐to‐day environment, while simultaneously helping children modulate their physiological response to environmental challenges, and providing opportunities to practise EF skills in ecologically‐valid contexts.

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