Executive Function by Age: What's Reasonable to Expect

By Laura Lurns · Reviewed by Philip Weaver · Last reviewed 2026-09-30

Is there a chart of what executive function looks like at each age?

Parents want a list. What should a five-year-old manage? What about a nine-year-old, or a teenager?

We looked for a reliable chart. We did not find one. A review in the journal Child Development speaks to this (Best and Miller, 2010).

The review set out to start building a picture of how these skills grow. In its opening, it says: "despite the large literature on EF in children, we have no truly developmental account of EF across childhood and adolescence."

In plain words, there was a lot of research. In 2010, the review said there was still no full account of how these skills grow with age. So there is no chart we can give you.

Why can't there be one simple chart?

Because the answer changes with the task. Here is one example.

The review reports a study by Luciana and Nelson (1998). Children, teenagers and young adults did one task. They had to keep track of a set of places. Only the number of places changed.

The review puts the result this way: "for the least demanding condition, performance was equivalent among children ages 4 to 8, adolescents, and young adults. However, as the number of search locations increased, age differences emerged. For three locations, performance maturity was reached at age 6, for 4 locations, maturity was not reached until adolescence, and for 6 and 8 locations, improvements continued until adulthood."

Here is the same result in plain words. With the fewest places, young children did as well as young adults. With three places, performance was mature by age six. With four, not until the teen years. With six or eight, it kept improving into adulthood.

Same task. Same skill. Only the load changed. And the age of "maturity" moved from six to adulthood.

So "what is reasonable for an eight-year-old?" has no answer on its own. It depends on how much you are asking them to hold at once. That is a question you can act on.

Do the parts grow at the same rate?

The review's summary says: "The components vary somewhat in their developmental trajectories."

So a child can find one part easy and another part hard. There is no single "executive function age" for a child.

The same part can also look finished at very different ages. It depends on the test. The review reports these results. We have not read the studies behind them ourselves.

Stopping the first impulse. - On two tests, there was no gain from age 6 to 12 (Klenberg and colleagues, 2001). The review notes these tests may have been too easy for older children. - On two other tests, gains went on to age 15 (Huizinga and colleagues, 2006). - On a third kind of test, gains went on to age 21 (Huizinga and colleagues, 2006).

Holding something in mind. - On the easiest task in one study, there was no change from age 9 to 20 (Luciana and colleagues, 2005). - On the hardest task in the same study, gains went on to age 16.

So one part can look finished at 12, 15 or 21. It depends on the test. A single chart by age cannot show that. These ages describe groups on one test each. None of them is a target for your child.

What does "reasonable" look like at home, then?

Our position is that you start from the load, not the age. Lower what you ask your child to hold at once. Then build it back up.

Give one step at a time. Say one step. When it is done, say the next one.

Write the steps down. A list your child checks off holds the steps, so your child does not have to.

Say the change before it happens. "In five minutes we stop this and start that." That is practice at switching.

Put a pause before the answer. "Take a breath, then tell me." That is practice at stopping the first impulse.

Add one more when it is easy. When two steps go smoothly, try three.

Do each of these on real tasks: homework, chores, the morning routine. We hold no measurement of what these steps do to executive function or to school results.

Can games or apps train executive function?

Some programs sell a game that trains executive function as a general power. The hope is that it shows up later as better schoolwork.

Melby-Lervåg, Redick and Hulme (2016) pooled the working-memory training studies. The comparison groups got a different kind of training. People got better at working-memory tasks, with no convincing carry-over to reading or arithmetic.

Kassai and colleagues (2019) pooled studies that trained executive function in children. Children got better at tasks close to the training. Gains on untrained executive-function jobs were too small to be sure of. That review did not measure schoolwork.

Researchers still argue about whether some small carry-over happens. So it is an open question. Memory-training gains have not been shown to reach reading or math.

So practice on the real work. A checklist used on real homework builds skill with checklists and homework.

Is it executive function, or something else?

Our position is that the name has to be earned before it is used. Several ordinary things look like it from the doorway.

A school skill that is still hard. When reading, writing or math is still hard work, less is left for planning and starting. A child who cannot yet read the worksheet easily can look disorganized. Our position is that this is worth checking first.

Short or broken sleep. A tired child is harder to start and harder to keep going. Protecting sleep is often the first thing worth changing. How much of the difficulty it accounts for is not something we have measured.

Worry about the work. A child avoiding the page can look like a child who cannot start it. From across a room, the two look the same. They need opposite responses. We hold no study of how to tell them apart.

Hearing or vision that has not been checked lately. This is the one route on this list we cannot walk with you. It is a medical route, and it is worth asking for.

We hold no measurement of how often any of these is the explanation. Nothing on this page rules anything in or out.