This week, we're featuring a post in partnership with Portia Learning Centre. The Portia team is dedicated to empowering children to reach their full potential. Through individualized ABA therapy and collaborative academic support, they help children build executive function skills that strengthen learning, confidence, and everyday success. In this guide, Portia explores practical strategies for supporting academic skills, offering valuable insights for educators, parents, and practitioners.
Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) therapy helps children develop the executive function skills they need to succeed—and for some, when skilled academic tutors join the support team, the impact is even greater.
Executive function helps us plan, organize, regulate emotions, follow through on tasks, stay focused, and persist even when something feels difficult.
With these skills, we remember what to do, manage our time effectively, control our impulses, and shift between activities. It's like the brain's management system.
When you struggle with these skills, everyday tasks feel overwhelming. And many people don't realize that executive functioning deficits are at the heart of emotional dysregulation as well. If a child struggles to start their homework, repeatedly forgets things at home, or freezes when tackling a multi-step task, frustration builds quickly. The meltdown that follows isn't about the homework itself; it's the executive function difficulties that made the task feel impossible.
Without support, these repeated experiences of failure can erode a child's confidence, creating a negative cycle: "I can't do this, so why bother trying?"
For children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), executive functioning skills are often significantly delayed. This isn't laziness; it's tied to the way they process planning and organization. Straightforward tasks feel genuinely difficult.
While the challenges for students with ASD and ADHD look similar—both conditions exist on a spectrum, meaning the extent of executive function challenges varies significantly from one child to another—with autism, these delays can be more profound in certain areas.
Additionally, the impact of these deficits shifts as children grow. As they age and encounter new developmental stages and hormonal changes, the same underlying executive function difficulties manifest in different ways, creating a rollercoaster effect where skills that seemed manageable suddenly become overwhelming again.
The good news? With proper support, children can learn tools and techniques that help them navigate these challenges successfully throughout their lives.
[Book a Free Screening or Start Your Intake Today]
ABA looks at behaviours within a specific context. Portia Learning Centre therapists examine the environment and ask, 'What can we change to help this child be more successful?'
The foundation of the ABA approach to executive functioning challenges involves breaking down complex skills into small, teachable steps. A child who can't complete a math worksheet isn't given 20 problems and a timer. Instead, the task is deconstructed into manageable pieces, with each small success celebrated along the way.
This process uses several systematic techniques to promote skill development:
Prompts to guide the child through each step
Positive reinforcement to build motivation and confidence
Repetition to help skills become automatic
Visual supports like schedules and checklists to make abstract executive function skills concrete and visible
ABA therapy goes beyond teaching skills.
Many children have experienced repeated failure at school and developed beliefs like "I'm not smart" or "I hate math." ABA therapists focus on rebuilding a child's confidence, shifting their negative self-narrative, and helping them regain their love of learning.
ABA Therapy and Executive Function in Action:
Consider a child who claims to hate math. ABA therapists, like those at Portia Learner Centre, don't immediately pull out worksheets. Instead, they start with the child's interests. If the child loves trains, the session might begin by exploring Via Rail schedules: "There are seven routes from Ottawa to Montréal. If 20 trains run each day, five days a week, how many routes run in a week?" Suddenly, the child is doing multiplication—and enjoying it. The praise and reinforcement that follow help build confidence: "You just solved that problem! You're so smart. You can do this."
Through this approach, children experience success in small increments, which builds momentum. The goal isn't to "cure" executive functioning deficits. ABA therapy teaches children to recognize their needs, develop coping strategies, and advocate for accommodations that will help them succeed.
Tutoring focuses on applying executive function skills to academic work.
Many students benefit from having a guide who helps them navigate tasks, maintain focus, and make decisions in real time when tackling schoolwork. Tutors provide structure, tools, and a consistently supportive presence.
What makes tutoring particularly effective for students with executive functioning challenges is the emphasis on ownership and engagement. Rather than simply telling a child what to do, skilled tutors model strategies and then gradually hand over responsibility to them.
Co-creating strategies strengthens ownership and can make the planning side of classwork feel creative and engaging rather than like another chore.
Tutoring and Executive Function in Action:
For a student who frequently forgot assignments and felt defeated before even starting their work, their TutorBright tutor introduced a weekly planner. Instead of simply demonstrating how to use it, the two worked together to select colours, symbols, and check-in routines that felt meaningful to the student. Over time, the student began to track deadlines independently.
As in ABA therapy, this supportive relationship matters enormously!
Children are more open to trying new strategies when they feel truly understood and supported. A sense of connection helps them regulate their focus, emotions, and approach to tasks, creating a safe space to practice new skills.
As they experience success, this confidence extends into other parts of school and daily life, reinforcing a stronger sense of capability and resilience.
When children enhance executive functioning skills and see that their actions have predictable effects across multiple settings, it strengthens their confidence and encourages consistent use of these essential skills.
ABA therapy and tutoring are complementary. Each addresses different aspects of executive function, but when these approaches align, children experience something transformative.
In our unique ABA Academic Support Program, Portia Learning Centre's Registered Behaviour Analysts (RBAs) focus on breaking down behaviours and reinforcing skills, while TutorBright tutors help students apply those skills to academics. Crucially, the same tools, language, and techniques are reinforced across settings.
How It Works:
A Portia RBA collects information during therapy sessions—for example, levels of persistence, coping skills, and task breakdown—and develops overarching goals for treating executive functioning deficits.
The RBA then designs an individualized behaviour plan, and the program is shared with TutorBright through Portia's ABA clinic software.
A tutor works directly with the child, either in their home or virtually, to deliver academic instruction and implement tailored strategies.
Updates are entered into the software, allowing the RBA to review progress and adjust the program as needed.
While many tutoring services exist, the integration of academic tutoring with RBA-designed programming and oversight is a very specialized offering that we've found addresses a significant gap in available services for children with autism and ADHD.
[Learn More About Our ABA Academic Support Program]
The partnership between Portia Learning Centre and TutorBright creates several powerful benefits for families:
Some families are unsure about the level of support their child needs.
Through our collaboration, if a child in tutoring shows signs of needing more intensive intervention, such as functional communication training or managing behaviours to control impulses, it may be beneficial to introduce comprehensive ABA therapy. Conversely, children in intensive ABA who are ready for less structured support can transition to the tutoring program.
Because this is a true ABA program, and fully supervised, implemented, and reviewed by Registered Behaviour Analysts, families can use their Ontario Autism Program (OAP) funding or insurance plans to cover it. Typically, OAP funding cannot be used for traditional tutoring because it's considered academic rather than therapeutic. Our partnership solves that challenge.
We share the prompting and reinforcement techniques used in therapy and tutoring sessions with families and educators, creating consistency across all environments where the child lives and learns.
When everyone supporting the child uses the same language and strategies, skills “generalize” more effectively. For example, if a child learns to break down a math problem into steps, they also learn to apply that same skillset in real-life contexts, such as cooking a meal, managing their morning routine, or completing assignments.
For children who have been receiving intensive ABA services and are ready to reintegrate into school, an integrated tutoring program serves as an excellent transition plan. It provides ongoing support while gradually reducing the intensity of therapy.
Here are some indicators that suggest executive functioning challenges may require professional support:
Task persistence and completion challenges
Focus and attention difficulties
Unable to remember instructions or formulate a plan
Avoidance and refusal
Emotional dysregulation
Persistent frustration despite home support
We know that when parents notice executive functioning challenges like these, heavy emotions often accompany them, leading to stressful relationships.
That's where outside support can make a big difference. Children get a safe space to practice, fail, and try again, without the pressure that can come from working only with family.
Choosing the right services for your child is one of the most important decisions you'll make.
Here are some questions to ask potential providers:
Do you offer initial screening or assessment to help determine what level of support my child needs?
How do you determine whether my child would benefit more from tutoring, ABA therapy, or a combination of both?
How do you build trust and make sure children feel safe, understood, and supported as they learn new skills?
Can you provide examples of how you adapt your approach to accommodate different learning styles?
How do you help build my child's self-advocacy skills?
How do you ensure skills transfer into real-life contexts at home, school, and in the community?
How are progress updates provided to families?
When working with multiple providers, how do you ensure effective communication to keep everyone aligned?
Your child's potential—not their executive functioning challenges—defines what's ahead for them.
With the right support, your child can learn the strategies, tools, and self-confidence they need to succeed.
Book a free screening or begin your intake today to find out how Portia Learning Centre and TutorBright can give your child the support they need to thrive.
About the author
President of Tutorbright