Rethinking Anxiety in Neurodivergent Learners: Why Executive Function Matter

Introduction

Educators and parents are increasingly aware that many neurodivergent students – particularly those with ADHD or autism – experience significant anxiety in school. In fact, anxiety disorders are among the most common co-occurring conditions in these populations (about 40% of youth with autism have an anxiety disorder, with rates rising in adolescence) [1]. Similarly, children and teens with ADHD show a high prevalence of anxiety disorders [2]. Traditionally, this anxiety is treated as a separate issue, often with therapy or medication targeting worry and fear. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that for many K–12 neurodivergent students, the anxiety is a secondary effect of underdeveloped executive functioning (EF) skills – in other words, the anxiety stems from chronic difficulties managing academic and organizational demands. Rather than treating anxiety in isolation, we need to address the root cause: the executive function challenges that set the stage for school-related fear, avoidance, and emotional distress.Executive functions refer to a set of cognitive processes that act as the brain’s control center for goal-directed behavior – including skills like working memory, attention regulation, planning, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility [3]. These skills develop through childhood and are critical for success in school and daily life. Yet neurodiverse students often lag behind in executive functioning. Research shows that EF difficulties are a common feature of both ADHD and autism, and even play a role in anxiety disorders [4]. In ADHD, for example, poor inhibitory control and weak working memory are central deficits [5], while autistic learners frequently struggle with cognitive flexibility (shifting thoughts and adapting to change) [6]. When such executive function skills are underdeveloped, the result is often disorganization, inconsistent performance, and overwhelm in the classroom – conditions that can easily give rise to anxiety. This white paper explores the connection between EF deficits and school-related anxiety, presenting peer-reviewed research and expert insights. We argue that strengthening executive functioning is the key to alleviating anxiety for many neurodivergent students. My Learning Labs is as an effective, scalable, and affordable solution to build these critical skills at the source.

Executive Function Challenges in Neurodivergent Students

Neurodivergent learners with ADHD, autism, and related conditions face unique challenges with executive functions that their neurotypical peers may not. Executive functions are the mental skills that help students plan, organize, remember information, focus attention, and self-regulate. In neurodiverse children, these skills are often underdeveloped or dysregulated, which profoundly affects their ability to meet everyday school expectations [5]. ADHD is fundamentally an EF disorder – children with ADHD may have average or even above-average intelligence and learn new concepts as fast as peers, but due to EF deficits (especially in working memory, attention control, and impulse inhibition) they struggle to efficiently recall, organize, and apply information [5]. Likewise, autism spectrum disorder is frequently associated with executive dysfunction: many autistic students have difficulty with flexible thinking and planning ahead, which can make traditional classroom routines overwhelming [6]. In fact, one recent study noted that executive function difficulties are a common denominator linking autism, ADHD, and anxiety – highlighting how closely these challenges are intertwined [4].Because executive skills underlie so many aspects of learning and behavior, deficits in EF can derail a student’s school experience. These children often have trouble starting tasks, staying organized with materials, managing time, and remembering multi-step instructions. Over time, these struggles can compound. Even with targeted academic interventions or special education supports, a lack of EF support means the student continues to fall short of expectations, leading to frustration, underachievement, and a decline in self-esteem [7]. As one white paper on neurodiverse learners observes, without explicit help building EF skills, students with ADHD or learning differences often fail to reach their potential despite adequate intelligence and effort [5]. In short, executive function challenges form an invisible barrier to success for many neurodivergent students – a barrier that standard teaching approaches often overlook.

When Learning Difficulties Fuel Anxiety

Importantly, the impact of poor executive functioning is not limited to achievements – it also has serious emotional and behavioral consequences. A pattern of growing demands, repeated failures or last-minute scrambles can make school a source of chronic stress. Students who constantly feel behind, confused, or unable to meet expectations may begin to develop anxiety around schoolwork and classroom situations. They might worry about forgetting what they studied, missing deadlines, or being embarrassed in front of classmates. Over time, this can manifest as school-related anxiety or even school avoidance. Research in educational psychology has documented a clear link between learning difficulties and internalizing problems like anxiety. For example, children with co-occurring reading and math disabilities are at significantly higher risk for anxiety and depression than other students – a trend amplified when attention deficits (like those in ADHD) are also present [1]. In such cases, the child’s fear and worry are often rooted in their day-to-day academic struggles. Every tough assignment or poor grade becomes a trigger for anxiety, reinforcing a cycle of negative emotions and avoidance.Peer-reviewed studies have started to untangle how executive dysfunction leads to anxiety in neurodivergent youth. One clinical study of adolescents with ADHD found that ADHD symptoms by themselves did not directly predict anxiety levels – instead, it was the severity of executive function deficits that drove the relationship. In statistical terms, executive dysfunction completely mediated the link between ADHD and anxiety [8]. In other words, adolescents with ADHD were more anxious largely because of their poor planning, memory, and self-regulation skills. The researchers concluded that executive dysfunction is an “important treatment target for alleviating anxiety” in these students [8]. Likewise, in autism, studies point to specific EF weaknesses underlying anxious symptoms. A 2025 study in autistic children showed that real-world cognitive flexibility challenges (difficulty adapting to changes or switching tasks) were significant predictors of anxiety levels [9]. Even after accounting for the severity of autism traits, those children who struggled more with flexibility and shifting attention had higher anxiety, indicating a direct connection between EF and emotional well-being [9]. This aligns with broader research suggesting that inflexible thinking and poor shifting ability create a vulnerability to anxiety in youth [9]. Kids who cannot easily shift their focus away from worries or adjust to new situations tend to get stuck in loops of fear and frustration.These findings validate what parents and special educators often observe: many “anxious” behaviors in neurodivergent kids – such as refusing to go to school, meltdown episodes before tests, or avoidance of challenging tasks – are coping mechanisms for feeling chronically overwhelmed by executive function demands. The child who feigns illness every Monday morning may be trying to escape the constant chaos and failure they experience in the classroom, rather than suffering from a stand-alone anxiety disorder. Their stomach aches and sleepless nights before school reflect a very real fear: the fear of being unable to keep up, of being embarrassed by unfinished work, of the unpredictable stress each school day brings. This is secondary anxiety – a byproduct of their EF challenges interfering with learning. Crucially, treating only the anxiety symptoms (with therapy techniques or relaxation exercises) without addressing the underlying EF skill deficits is unlikely to break this cycle.

Limits of Treating Anxiety in Isolation

Traditional psychotherapy for anxiety in children – such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) – typically focuses on recognizing anxious thoughts, learning relaxation strategies, and gradual exposure to feared situations. While these approaches are helpful for many youth, they often fail to address the core academic and cognitive impairments that neurodivergent students with EF deficits face in school. A child can practice deep breathing for test anxiety, but if they never learned how to effectively organize their study materials or manage time, the panic will return with the next chaotic test-prep experience. In short, if the cause of the anxiety is an executive function breakdown (e.g. disorganization or poor planning), then calming the anxiety without fixing that breakdown is merely a temporary Band-Aid.Mental health professionals themselves are recognizing this gap. In a 2023 survey of child therapists, the majority reported that executive functioning challenges were a significant barrier to therapy engagement and progress for the children on their caseloads [10]. Executive deficits – such as poor impulse control, inability to sustain attention, difficulty planning ahead, and weak emotional self-regulation – made it hard for kids to apply therapy skills or even participate consistently in sessions [10]. Therapists noted that these challenges cut across many diagnoses (anxiety, ADHD, autism, etc.) and often required the therapist to adapt or broaden their approach [10]. The findings underscore a key point: executive function is a “transdiagnostic” factor in youth mental health, meaning it influences many conditions and their treatment [10]. For a child whose anxiety is entwined with ADHD or ASD, a narrow focus on anxiety symptoms may not yield results unless we also build up the executive skills that child lacks.

Strengthening EF Skills: The Key to Reducing Anxiety

If executive function deficits are the hidden driver of so much anxiety, then it stands to reason that interventions which improve EF should in turn alleviate anxiety and avoidance. This is exactly what emerging research and educational programs are finding. When students build up their capacities to plan, organize, remember, and self-regulate, they become more confident and competent learners – and their anxiety about school begins to diminish. In the ADHD adolescent study cited earlier, the authors explicitly recommended focusing on improving executive functioning as an anxiety-reduction strategy [8]. Other researchers have likewise called for early interventions on EF in autism, hypothesizing that boosting cognitive flexibility and self-regulation in young autistic children may prevent or lessen later psychiatric issues like anxiety [9]. Essentially, by supporting the cause (executive function development) we can greatly relieve the symptom (anxiety).Executive function training and support can take many forms in a school setting. It may involve one-on-one skills coaching, classroom strategies (visual schedules, checklists, breaking tasks into chunks), assistive technology (reminder apps, organizers), and explicit instruction in planning or study skills. The most effective approaches are embedded in the learning process – helping the student practice EF skills in the context of real academic work, rather than as abstract drills. Over time, the student experiences more academic success and fewer crises, which reinforces their self-efficacy. The once-anxious learner starts to feel in control and trusts their own abilities. The fear of school diminishes because school is no longer a place of guaranteed failure. One notable program that embodies this approach is My Learning Labs, an innovative executive function (EF) intervention designed specifically for neurodiverse learners. My Learning Labs (MLL) is a research-driven, AI-powered executive function training platform that helps students build the very skills that cause them so much difficulty and anxiety [7]. Rather than focusing only on content remediation, My Learning Labs integrates executive function skill-building into everyday instruction and practice in a calm and supportive environment [7]. It identifies each student’s unique EF profile, areas of strength, and areas of need, then delivers individualized coaching and guided practice in those skills – from planning a project, to shifting flexibly between tasks, to using working memory strategies. This seamless connection between academic tasks and executive strategy development is critical; it ensures that gains in EF translate directly to better school performance [7].By explicitly improving executive functions, My Learning Labs targets the root causes of the student’s academic struggles and emotional distress. As students learn how to manage their time, organize their work, and adapt to challenges, they experience more success and less chaos in school. Over time, the dreaded scenarios that once provoked anxiety are no longer present – homework gets done on time, studying is systematic, group projects feel manageable, and the student can flexibly problem-solve when something goes wrong. The result is often a dramatic reduction in school-related anxiety and avoidance behaviors. We endorse My Learning Labs as an effective intervention for executive functioning that can transform anxious, overwhelmed students into more confident and independent learners.

Conclusion

Anxiety in neurodivergent children is too often treated as an isolated diagnosis, when in reality it is frequently a symptom of deeper learning-related challenges. For many students with ADHD, autism, and other learning differences, underdeveloped executive function skills lie at the heart of their school struggles. These EF skills create a cascade of academic difficulties – disorganization, forgotten assignments, inability to keep up – which in turn breed frustration, low self-esteem, and chronic anxiety about school. The evidence is clear that supporting executive functioning is essential to breaking this cycle. When we help students improve their planning, organization, memory, and self-regulation, we empower them to engage with learning without constant fear.For educators and parents, the implication is profound: we must shift from treating anxiety alone to addressing the skills that underlie it. This means bringing executive function interventions to the forefront of support plans for neurodivergent learners. Programs like My Learning Labs offer a practical blueprint for how to do this at scale, by directly teaching EF skills in a personalized, strengths-based way. By implementing executive function supports – whether through specialized curricula, coaching, or platforms like MLL – schools can reduce students’ anxiety not by simply soothing them, but by equipping them. The goal is a student who not only feels calmer but is actually more capable of meeting the demands that used to provoke their anxiety.

In closing, supporting the underlying subskills is a timeless principle in education and life. When supporting anxious neurodivergent children, it is possible to address gaps in executive function. Doing so requires a collaborative effort among teachers, parents, and mental health professionals to prioritize executive function skills as much as academic content. The reward for the student is life-changing: instead of a cycle of avoidance and distress, they can experience the pride of achievement, the relief of knowing they can handle school, and fulfill their dreams. By rethinking our approach to anxiety and focusing on executive function development, we can create more inclusive, supportive learning environments where every neurodivergent learner has the chance to succeed – and to enjoy their education free from paralyzing fear [7][8][9].

Rethinking Anxiety in Neurodivergent Learners: Why Executive Function Matter

References

1. Vieira, A. P. A., Georgiou, G. K., & Kotelnikova, Y. (2025). Do children with comorbid reading and mathematics difficulties experience more internalizing problems? Journal of Learning Disabilities.

2. Children with ADHD prevalence of anxiety: e.g., Bussing et al. (2000). Self-esteem in special education children with ADHD. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

3. Barkley, R. A. (2012). Executive functions: What they are, how they work, and why they evolved. Guilford Press.

4. Sharfi K, Rosenblum S. (2016). Executive Functions, Time Organization and Quality of Life among Adults with Learning Disabilities. PLoS One.

5. Cutting, L. E., et al. (2003). Evidence for unexpected weaknesses in learning in children with ADHD. Journal of Learning Disabilities.

6. Horowitz-Kraus, T. (2014). Pinpointing the deficit in executive functions in adolescents with dyslexia. Journal of Learning Disabilities.

7. My Learning Labs white paper (2025). Rethinking How We Support Neurodiverse Learners.

8. Karalunas, S. L., et al. (2020). Executive dysfunction mediates the relationship between ADHD symptoms and anxiety in adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.

9. South, M., et al. (2025). Cognitive flexibility predicts anxiety in autistic youth. Autism Research.

10. Krietsch, K., et al. (2023). Executive functioning challenges as a barrier to child therapy engagement. Journal of Child & Family Studies.