Is Executive Function Coach Training Worth It? An Educational Therapist's Case Study
Marie Havens’ students were finally reading and writing well, and they were still falling behind, because school never taught them how to plan, prioritize or ask for help.
In this post, you’ll learn how Marie, an educational therapist and EFCA graduate, added executive function coaching to her practice, plus six lessons you can use in your own practice.👇
Table of Contents
Meet Marie Havens
Marie Havens spent years studying executive function as an educational therapist.
What she didn't have was a way to turn all that theory into an executive function coaching session a student could use.
She joined our training in the summer of 2024, and two years later she's coaching with her own version of our session template.
Marie is the founder of 3C Learning in Dexter, Michigan, and works with students across the country online.
She is an associate member of the Association of Educational Therapists (AET), a professionally certified educational therapist through the National Institute for Learning Development (NILD), and certified in structured literacy.
Sean McCormick, M.Ed., our founder and a Professional-level educational therapist himself, sat down with her in October 2026 to ask whether executive function coach training was worth it.
If you prefer to watch the video interview, you can do that here.👇
If you're an educational therapist wondering whether executive function coaching belongs in your practice, start with Marie's story.
Marie's story at a glance | |
Before | An educational therapy practice focused mostly on literacy, after earlier careers as a physical therapist and a homeschooling parent |
The problem | Students were building reading and writing skills but couldn't navigate their student portals, prioritize assignments or ask for help |
What was missing | Years of executive function theory with no framework for running a session |
What changed | A session template she made her own, a structure for bringing parents in, and live calls that kept her moving |
Today | Executive function coaching alongside her literacy work |
From physical therapist to educational therapist
Marie's path into educational therapy started at home, which is true of many educational therapists.
"Like many educational therapists, I actually found my way into this profession as the parent of neurodivergent students."
She started her career as a physical therapist and left the field when her family moved overseas. After an extended period in Japan, she homeschooled her own children.
When it was time to decide what came next, she saw that the teaching she'd been doing at home could help other families, but she wanted the training to do it well.
"I thought, I've been teaching these kids, and I think I could benefit other children, but I knew I needed additional training."
She earned a master's degree and a master's-level certificate in educational therapy, then built 3C Learning.
Most of her work was in literacy. Over the last few years, she found herself drawn more and more to students whose biggest struggle wasn't reading at all.
The problem: bright students who can't navigate school
Marie's literacy students were making real progress. Their reading and writing were improving, and they were still falling behind.
"I was seeing students who were developing their reading and writing skills, but still had trouble. Didn't know how to navigate their student portals. They didn't know where to locate resources for their classes. They didn't know how to prioritize which assignments needed to be done first."
Some couldn't bring themselves to approach a teacher when they were stuck. They knew there was work to do. They just couldn't get from knowing to doing.
"Oh, I know there are things I need to do, but I don't really know exactly how to attack this assignment. And I don't know how to ask for help."
These weren't struggling students in the usual sense. Marie has worked with students who test in the gifted range.
"They're obviously very bright and very capable students, but there are just some glitches in the way their brain processes information."
Those are executive function skills:
planning
prioritizing
starting a task
asking for help
And no amount of reading instruction teaches them.
For more on why students struggle, watch this👇
Is executive function a fad? Why schools aren't teaching these skills
We hear one question constantly: is executive function a fad?
Researchers have been studying it for about fifty years.
Most parents are hearing the term for the first time, but the field isn't new. What has changed is how hard school has become to navigate.
Marie taught her first study skills course twenty to twenty-five years ago, to homeschooled high schoolers. Back then, the textbook was the center of everything. You taught students to read it, study from it and use it as a resource.
That anchor is gone.
"Teachers are not using textbooks as often as they did in the past... Students don't really know how to collate all that information and figure out where to find answers to the questions for their homework."
Resources now live in the student portal, on paper handouts and in lecture notes, often all at once.
Students have to pull it together on their own.
Executive function skills have to be taught on purpose.
Marie believes every student, not only the ones who come to her, should get explicit instruction in these skills.
"I come from a perspective where I believe that all of those skills should be intentionally taught at all levels... I think all students benefit from having some explicit instruction in how to manage all these soft skills."
Schools are supposed to provide this kind of tier one support in the general classroom.
Marie works with students across the country, and here's what she sees:
"I'm not seeing a coordinated approach within a school system to teach students these skills."
That's the gap.
Schools grade students on work they never taught them to manage, then treat the missing assignments as a motivation problem.
Some districts do more than others, but for most families, the explicit teaching happens with an educational therapist or an executive function coach, or it doesn't happen at all.
What was missing: years of theory, no framework
Marie first learned about executive function more than fifteen years ago, from her son's neuropsychologist.
She kept learning from there.
About three years ago she started looking specifically for executive function training, and she found plenty of it.
What she couldn't find was a way to use it.
"For as many years as I've been learning about executive function, I felt like I was getting a lot of theory. And the theory has continued to advance. The research has continued to advance, and that's really awesome. But I felt like I didn't have a framework to put that theory into."
This is the gap we see most often in experienced educational therapists.
They know more about executive function than almost anyone a family will ever meet.
They've just never been shown how to run a single session that turns that knowledge into a result.
Marie took our certification training in the summer of 2024.
Back then it was a six-week cohort with live instruction and the full set of resources. The community came shortly after.
What changed inside EFCA
What surprised Marie most wasn't the curriculum. It was watching the program keep growing after she finished it.
"When I first took the program, we didn't have a community per se... But it was only shortly after that that the community was started, and that's been a completely different experience."
Five parts of that experience made the difference for her.👇
Live calls that answer questions you didn't know you had
"Sometimes somebody will ask a question that I didn't even realize I had. And then I can listen to you or one of the other folks in the community kind of work through that question and come to an answer."
Questions that push on limiting beliefs
Marie noticed how the calls are run. We ask clarifying questions, and sometimes we push.
"Getting people to really think: what are those limiting beliefs we have that might get in the way of our taking a next action towards building our business?"
Body doubling isn't just for students
Body doubling means doing focused work with another person present, in the room or on a video call, so their presence helps you start and stay on task.
Coaches recommend it to students all the time.
Our accountability sessions let coaches use it themselves: everyone says what they'll get done, works off camera for 40 to 50 minutes, then comes back to report.
"We talk about body doubling with our own students and helping students find folks that they can body double with. But we actually get to experience that for ourselves. So many of us who are adults now have never experienced that kind of accountability."
A template she made her own
We give members a template for running each executive function coaching session.
Marie had been meaning to make her own version for a while.
During one accountability call, she finally did it: she copied the template, added her logo, and adjusted the language around building a secure connection with the student so it sounded like her.
She's using it now with her current executive function student.
That's why the templates are there.
Our founder started EF Specialists, our coaching business, seven years ago and made plenty of mistakes along the way.
The templates mean members don't have to repeat them or build everything from scratch.
A structure for bringing parents in
One of AET's core values is that educational therapists work with families and other professionals, not just the student.
Marie found that our family team meeting gave that value a structure.
"It was really helpful for me to learn how you incorporate the family team meeting and working together with the parents... I feel like I've got a better structure for how to incorporate parents into the therapeutic alliance."
She'd tell you she's still refining it. That's normal.
How involved parents should be depends on the student's age: closely for a younger child, less often for a college student. If you want the steps, watch how to run a family team meeting.
How Marie explains executive function to families
Executive function is the set of brain skills, led by the frontal lobe, that let us plan, organize, start tasks and ask for help, at school and in everyday life.
That's our plain-language version of how Marie explains it:
"I think of executive functioning as kind of that part of our brain, frontal lobe, that really kind of orchestrates all of the different functions, particularly cognitive functions, that go into the learning experience, as well as the experience of just making life happen."
She makes two points when she explains it.
First, it isn't only a school thing. The same skills let a young adult replace a lost Social Security card, apply for a job or pay bills on time.
Second, the frontal lobe doesn't work alone.
"I like students to understand that our brain is a network, really, and so all the parts of our brain get involved."
If you want a fuller definition to share with parents, start with What are executive function skills?
Why a network beats a single mentor
Marie's network idea applies to coaches too. In the interview, Sean put it this way:
"You can't make your brain bigger, but you can make your mind bigger when you are in a network of people where you're all working on the same thing and you can exchange ideas."
In our community we call it "who, not how."
When you're stuck, the first question isn't how to solve the problem.
It's who can help you see it more clearly.
That's the same thing a coach does for a student: clear the noise and focus on the one thing that needs to happen next.
Marie said this was one of the biggest shifts for her.
"Many of us who are adults have grown up in social settings where everything is built around complete independence. Do it by yourself. Figure it out. Figure it out. Figure it out."
She'd been told as a young adult that she should find a mentor, without anyone explaining how.
What she found instead was better: "It's not about just having one person as a mentor. It's having a network of people that you can pull from."
She credits AET's collaborative culture for the same lesson, and Sean does too.
His years in AET, including the chapters and the workshops he ran for educational therapists, are a big part of why we built this community the way we did.
Marie's practice today
Marie's practice, 3C Learning, is based in Dexter, Michigan, and she works with students online across the country.
Website: 3clearning.com
Email: marie@3clearning.com
Marie didn't give up literacy work to become an executive function coach.
She added executive function coaching to an educational therapy practice she'd already built.
You don't have to choose between the two.
She also values how many ways there are to start.
Before anyone commits to training, they can watch our YouTube channel or read the book.
Marie bought From Educator to Executive Function Coach and the audiobook after finishing the program, so she could review what she'd learned.
"That's a very inexpensive way for people who are just thinking about the idea, especially, to kind of get started thinking about it and learning about what it's like to become an executive function coach."
For people who are serious about building an executive function coaching business, she says the resources we've added over the last two years have been "amazing."
Want a free resource to start? Join our free community to start the 30-day book sprint!
This community has one job: help you read From Educator to Executive Function Coach and put it into action, one 10-minute step a day for 30 days.
Six lessons for educational therapists
Theory isn't a session plan. Your educational therapy training is the hard part, and you already have it. What's usually missing is a repeatable structure for one coaching session.
Teach the basics on purpose. Don't assume a bright student can find resources in a portal, rank assignments or email a teacher. Teach it, practice it, then check it.
Start from a template, then make it yours. Marie copied our session template, added her logo and her own language, and now uses it with her student. See how to run an executive function coaching session.
Give parents a structure. A regular family team meeting keeps families involved without you becoming responsible for everything.
Build your professional network on purpose. It's how you learn, and it's how you get referrals. Word of mouth is not a strategy. It's what happens after you've built relationships with the therapists, tutors and school staff who see the students you serve, so make networking its own part of your marketing plan. Start with how to network with prospective clients and referral partners.
Try body doubling yourself. You'll understand why it works for students once it's gotten you through a task you've been putting off.
FAQs
Is executive function coach training worth it for an educational therapist?
For Marie, yes, because it filled the one gap her educational therapy training left: a framework for running an executive function coaching session. It's most worth it if you already know the research but don't have a session structure, a process for involving parents, or the business systems to find executive function clients.
What is body doubling?
Body doubling means doing focused work with another person present, in person or on a video call. Having someone else there makes it easier to start a task and stay with it. It's widely used with students who have ADHD, and it works for adults too.
Should executive function skills be taught explicitly?
Yes. Planning, prioritizing, starting tasks and asking for help can be broken into small skills and taught directly. Most schools don't have a coordinated way to do that, so educational therapists and executive function coaches often fill the gap.
Can an educational therapist become an executive function coach?
Yes. Educational therapists already understand executive function, assessment and how to work with families. Most add a coaching framework, session templates and the business systems to reach executive function clients, often alongside the educational therapy work they already do.
Do I need a certification to become an executive function coach?
There is no legal governing body for executive function coaching, and there is no legally required certification to practice. A certification program gives you structured training, templates, mentorship and a community, and it shows families you've completed a defined program. EFCA is a private training program; certification is awarded by EFCA upon completion of program requirements.
How much do executive function coaches earn?
Rates vary with location, experience, and niche. Our State of the Executive Function Coaching Industry report breaks down what EFCA graduates actually charge and earn.
Watch next
Video | Where it connects to Marie's story |
Jen Coleman, another educational therapist, on the same decision | |
The session structure Marie was missing | |
How she now brings parents in | |
A definition to share with families | |
Where educational therapists' assessment background pays off | |
The limiting beliefs our calls push on | |
What the accountability calls are for | |
The book Marie bought and listens to |
Keep reading
Ready to add executive function coaching to your educational therapy practice?
We built a page just for educational therapists: see how our training fits your practice.
Not ready to apply?
Do what Marie recommends and start with the book, From Educator to Executive Function Coach (also on Amazon).
When you're ready, apply for certification. If you're a good fit, Sean meets with you personally to map out your next step.
Here is one of our favorite reviews. You can read all recent reviews on this page.Â
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