Profile Building Is Not One Assessment: Why the Whole Picture Changes Everything
That is a child's self assessment form from elementary school. What she wrote that she was most proud of that week. And then her goal for the following week written in her own words. She already understood something important about her own brain. Not because someone told her what to write.
Because she had learned to see herself clearly enough to name what she needed.
This is where this story begins.
A family came to me after their child received a diagnosis of ADHD. They were not looking for someone to fix anything. They wanted to provide the best possible support for their child and they wanted to understand how to do that. Regulation was the biggest challenge from the very beginning. When this student became overwhelmed, she cried. Not as a behavior problem. As her nervous system doing the only thing it knew how to do when things felt like too much.
We started with parent coaching because understanding had to begin with the family. And over time, as the work deepened, we transitioned into working directly with the student. We introduced a technique for regulation. Part of that process involved learning to recognize when she was becoming overwhelmed before it reached the breaking point. Learning to manage what was happening inside her before it spilled over. That work became foundational. And it showed up everywhere. In her sessions. In her goals. In her own words on that self assessment form.
Years passed. The student grew. The work continued. And then midway through our coaching relationship we did something important. We gathered the full picture.
Midway through our work together we gathered data from every angle. Formal assessments. A neuropsychological evaluation. A 504 plan. The Comprehensive Executive Function Inventory completed by both the student and her parents. Parent observations. School observations. Coaching observations from our sessions together. And the student's own perception of where she was strong and where she still struggled.
What emerged from all of that was not a single clear answer. It was something more honest and more useful than that.
The student saw herself as strong in areas that her parents still identified as challenges. And here is the thing that I want you to sit with. Both of them were right.
From where this student started, her growth was real and significant. She had worked hard on the areas that were most difficult for her. She had learned tools. She had built self awareness. She had made progress that she could feel and name and see in herself. So when she looked at those areas on an assessment, she saw strength. Because relative to where she had been, they were.
Her parents were measuring from a different place. They were seeing her in the context of daily life, of family demands, of moments when the challenges still showed up. They were also right.
And the coaching observations held both truths at the same time. Yes, there was real growth. And yes, there was still work to do. Both things were true because growth is rarely finished and progress is rarely linear.
This is what profile building actually reveals when you do it well. Not a single story about a student. Multiple true stories about the same unique brain seen from different angles at the same moment in time.
This is also why the infinity symbol sits at the center of the Executive Function Interpretive Coaching Framework. Profile building is not something you do once and file away. It is something you return to. It evolves as the student evolves. What the data shows at one point in time needs to be understood alongside what the coaching observations show two years later. The whole picture is always changing because the unique brain at the center of it is always growing.
The question I want to leave you with is this. Think about the unique brain you are working with right now. What does your data tell you? And whose perspective is missing from that picture?
Because the answer to that question might change everything about how you show up for that student next week.
If you want to learn how to gather and understand a complete profile of the unique brains you work with, that work happens inside the Mastering EF Course. The cohort begins August 10th. But if you register now before August 1st, you can join at the current investment of $1,295 and receive the digital versions with the option to upgrade to physical copies whenever you are ready. Use the coupon code UPGRADE to get your physical copies.
On August 1st that investment moves to $1,597 and includes both digital and physical versions. This is not another strategy course. This is the training that helps you understand every unique brain you work with from the foundation up. When you are ready to become the educator who truly gets it, I would love to have you inside.
Crista will be speaking at The Executive Function Online Summit TEFOS, hosted by Seth Perler August 14 through 17. Join her for two mini sessions, Pause Before You React: The Truth Behind the Lie and Lying as a Clue: An EF Detective's Guide for Parents.
👉🏻Register for Free TEFOS August 14-17
Real stories. Real science. Real understanding.
