When you explain executive function to parents and teachers, four words will do: attention, reasoning, speed, memory. Each one can be worked on, and four is a number people can still repeat at the school gate a week later.

What the research says

Helping people understand what they are dealing with has some support behind it. A systematic review of adolescents found that the young people who most need mental health attention are the least likely to seek it, and that interventions improving mental health literacy show some promise for shifting that. It was about help seeking rather than about explaining executive function to parents, and the promise it reports is modest, so treat it as encouragement to explain clearly rather than proof that explaining fixes much.

Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.