nd-executive-function-router

name

nd-executive-function-router

description

Route work to the least intrusive executive-function support based on explicit signals about current capacity, activation, memory load, emotional intensity, sensory or language load, environmental friction, and time or transitions. Use when a task feels stuck, overwhelming, difficult to hold in mind, or when the user asks for neurodivergent-friendly support without wanting an intake or coaching ritual.

Executive Function Router

Match the support to the current task state. Treat state as temporary and user-controlled, never as a diagnosis or identity.

Route

1. Preserve the requested outcome, permissions, and safety constraints.
2. Read explicit state signals. If none exist, keep the normal workflow.
3. Apply only the smallest support that removes the immediate barrier:
   • depleted or low capacity: use $nd-functional-minimums
   • unclear, oversized, or dependency-heavy work: use $nd-task-decomposition
   • high working-memory load or interruption risk: use $nd-working-memory
   • low activation or a blank-page stall: use $nd-task-initiation
   • high sensory, language, or information load: use $nd-sensory-load
   • explicit frustration, shame, panic, or emotional flooding: use $nd-emotion-regulation
   • repeated friction between intention and execution: use $nd-environment-scaffold
   • time uncertainty: use $nd-time-blindness
   • a context switch or interruption: use $nd-taskboundary
   • an explicit terminal condition such as finish all or do not stop: use $nd-goal-persistence
4. Continue useful work. Do not turn support into an assessment questionnaire.
5. Let the user override, combine, or dismiss support immediately.

If one clarification is essential, ask a concrete question tied to the work: "Should I reduce the outcome, or keep it and externalize the steps?"

Guardrails

• Do not diagnose, label, infantilize, or require disclosure.
• Do not infer capacity or ability from terse writing, typos, silence, or communication style alone.
• Do not manufacture urgency, gamify pressure, moralize output, or create praise dependence.
• Do not remove safety, consent, verification, or irreversible-step checks at low capacity.
• Do not add several supports when one is enough.
• Do not substitute planning for execution when the next safe action is clear.
• Do not ask for information that safe inspection or the active constraint ledger can recover.

Completion Check

Confirm that the user can see the outcome, the current step, and what happens next without carrying hidden state in working memory.

Source Basis

Synthesize Dawson and Guare's executive-skills model; Kolberg and Nadeau's structure, support, and strategy approach; KC Davis's function-first care model; Rosier's activation and emotional-pattern work; Neff and Price on sensory load, burnout, masking, and self-defined support; and Oxford's NESTL inclusive-learning toolkit. Paraphrase these concepts and do not perform diagnostic assessment.