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Executive function, made usable

Built by a School Neuropsychologist.Made for the kid in front of you.

Printable workbooks that turn executive function research into something a nine-year-old can actually do with a pencil — and something a parent or teacher can actually read at a glance.

Shop the workbooks → See how they work
◆ Written by a practicing School Neuropsychologist, M.A., C.A.S. ◆ Print or instant PDF ◆ Classroom & home use

Daily Tracker — Sample

Read for 30 min+4
Outside / moved my body+3
Helped without being asked+2
Video games — 2 hrs−4
Shows / scrolling — 1 hr−1
Today's score+4

The cost of screen time climbs the longer it runs — so kids feel the difference between twenty minutes and two hours.

The workbooks

Two books. One idea: make the invisible visible.

Kids can't manage what they can't see. These are the tools I wanted on my own desk — so I built them.

Coming soon
Cover of The Dopamine Tracker workbook

The Dopamine Tracker

A tool for parents and kids to build balance in a dopamine-driven world

60-day daily tracker · Ages 8–14 · Home or clinic

A daily one-page spread a child fills out themselves. The back of every page turns that day into a parent- or clinician-facing summary — no interpretation required.

  • 60 daily tracker sheets, child-facing front, adult-facing back
  • A scoring curve where two hours costs far more than twenty minutes
  • Consistency score — rewards showing up, not perfection
  • Multi-day graph and goal tracking built in
  • Two plain-language appendix guides for grown-ups
Tell me when it’s outEmail me

Print and PDF editions are in final production. Subscribers hear first.

Available now
Cover of Your Passion Project workbook

Your Passion Project

A neuroscience-based workbook to turn curiosity into purpose

40 pages · Ages 9–14 · Home or classroom

A guided workbook that walks a kid from "I don't know what I'm interested in" to a finished project they chose, planned, and saw through — the whole executive function arc, disguised as something fun.

  • Structured from interest-finding through to finished work
  • Planning, sequencing, and follow-through scaffolds on every page
  • Works as an independent project or a full classroom unit
  • Neuroscience-backed, written in kid-facing language
Get it on Teachers Pay TeachersFor classrooms Buy the print edition on AmazonPaperback Download the printable PDF$10 · instant
Inside the book

See the pages before you buy.

Foundations first, then the project, then the daily practice that makes it stick.

Table of contents page
Full table of contents
Executive functions explained for kids
EF explained, kid-facing
Weekly task planning page
Weekly planning spread
Daily Big 3 and time boxing page
Daily Big 3 & time boxing

Includes an executive functioning screener, five guided modules, reference tables of EF strategies, and a habit tracker.

How they work

Simple enough for a kid. Useful enough for a clinician.

Every design decision runs through one test: could a child do this alone, at the kitchen table, without an adult hovering?

The kid fills it in

One page a day, front side. Circle what you did, note how long, add up the score. Pencil and paper — nothing to log into, nothing to charge.

The math does the teaching

Costs escalate the longer a drain runs, so the tradeoff is felt rather than lectured. Mood and energy get noticed without being graded.

The adult reads the back

The reverse of each page is written for you — parent, teacher, or clinician. Patterns over days, not a verdict on one bad afternoon.

Progress becomes visible

Graphs and a consistency score turn eight weeks of small choices into something a kid can point at and say: that's me, getting better at this.

Who's behind this
I write these the way I'd explain them to a family sitting across the table from me.

I'm Thom Powers — a practicing School Neuropsychologist working in Vermont schools. Most days I'm doing evaluations, sitting in eligibility meetings, and trying to hand families something they can actually use on Monday.

Powers Cognitive Tools started because that last part kept failing. The research on executive function is strong. The tools built on top of it are usually either too clinical for a kid or too vague to be worth anything. So I started making the middle thing.

Everything here is built from a practitioner's chair, tested against real caseloads, and written in plain language on purpose — for the parent at the kitchen table as much as the psychologist writing the report.

Credentials & practice

  • M.A., C.A.S.
  • School Neuropsychologist Diplomate
  • Practicing School Neuropsychologist, Vermont public schools
  • Works within Vermont special education regulations and the MTSS framework
  • Trauma-informed, strengths-based practice
  • Founder, Powers Cognitive Tools LLC
What's coming

Tools for schools, in development.

The workbooks are the front door. These are the school-side tools being built behind it.

EF Tracker

Individual executive function progress monitoring for Tier 2 and Tier 3 MTSS teams.

Classroom Flow

Tier 1 environmental structuring — the universal supports that reduce who needs Tier 2 at all.

Dopamine Tracker app

The workbook's scoring system, for families who'd rather do it on a phone.

Professional development

EF and cognitive-neuroscience PD for teachers, teams, and districts.