Understanding Executive Function Development in Children: A Guide for Parents and Professionals

Learn how executive function skills develop in children, what milestones to expect, and how to support both neurotypical and neurodivergent children at home and in educational settings.

Early Development of Executive Functions

Executive functions are important skills that help us plan, adapt, and manage everyday tasks - but children aren’t born with them.  Executive function development in children occurs gradually from birth as children grow. The tricky part is, they don't all develop at the same time, or at the same rate.  And while we know what “typically” happens, every child develops these skills at their own pace. This process can look different for neurodivergent children.

Inhibition and Working Memory

Two executive functions that start developing by 12 months of age include inhibition (being able to think before you act) and working memory (the ability to hold information in your memory while performing complex instructions). Like all executive functions, these skills develop at different rates and different ages:

• A child's working memory typically shows steady gains between the ages of 3 to 5 years old.

• Inhibition typically starts to show significant improvement between the ages of 5 and 9 years old. 

And even within these "typical" age ranges, there is high variability between individuals, particularly when we take neurodiversity into account.

Cognitive Flexibility

The next executive function to start developing is our cognitive flexibility, from around two years of age. Cognitive flexibility is our ability to adapt to changing rules, perspectives, or demands. An example would be knowing to lower to your "inside" voice when you change environments from outside play to the library. Another example is adapting to a new classroom routine. 

Children typically don't tend to start demonstrating their cognitive flexibility until 4-5 years of age. Ever had a child ask you to play "yes means no and no means yes?". That's them exploring this new skill of flexibility! Their brain is flexing this new cognitive flexibility. They are probably thinking "I can hear yes, but understand this means no... that's so funny!"

Why is it important to understand how executive functions develop in children?

Understanding how executive functions develop in children helps us adjust our expectations and demands we place on them. 

• Inhibition: While this starts to develop in infancy, children typically only start to have the ability to ignore distractions between of 5-to-9 years of age, meaning we should support them to refocus when distracted, rather than tell them off.

• Working Memory: In everyday life, we should not expect a 5-year-old to hold more than 1 or 2 instructions in their head at once. For example, avoid saying, ‘put your shoes and socks on, then come and eat breakfast’ as that's a 3 step instruction. 

• Flexibility: Cognitive flexibility is thought to be generally mature in neurotypical children by about 12 years of age. For primary school-aged children, who are still developing cognitive flexibility, this may show up in different ways. They might struggle to adapt to new classroom rules at the start of the year, or having difficulty switching from high-energy play to class work after recess. 

And that's just the first three executive function abilities to develop! Children still have many more exciting developments ahead, including emotional regulation, initiation (the ability to start tasks), planning, organisation, and persistence (staying on tasks, especially when they are boring or hard).

It’s also important to note that this blog references research which tends to focus on neurotypical children.  Every child develops executive functions at their own pace, and this process can look different for neurodivergent children.

For parents: Want to learn more and know how to support executive functions through everyday tasks?  Join our online Parent Workshop on the 28th April 2026 to discover practical, neuroaffirming strategies for parents and carers that you can use at home to support your child’s growth.

✨ Details and registration can be found HERE. We’d love to welcome you!

For Educators and Allied Health professionals: We have a four-part series on executive functions coming up in 2026 made just for you! In the meantime, you can sign up to our mailing list in order to download our reference guide "Development of Executive Functions: From infancy to adolescence"  (sign-up and download HERE) which highlights typical milestones in the development of inhibition, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning/problem solving.  And once on our mailing list, you will also be notified with updates about our course!

As always, if you have questions, or would like any further information, please reach out to us via email.

References

• Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135-168,

• Garon, N., Bryson, S. E., & Smith, I. M. (2008). Executive function in preschoolers: a review using an integrative framework. Psychological Bulletin, 134(1), 31-60.