Why is instructional intensity important for learners with executive function difficulties?

• A. It reduces practice time
• B. It avoids repetition
• C. Repeated, consistent, and intensive practice allows learners to learn strategies to retain information and inhibit forgetting
• D. It is unnecessary for these learners

Answer: (C)

Instructional intensity matters because learners with executive function difficulties need repeated, consistent practice to learn and use strategies that help them hold onto information and resist forgetting. When practice is frequent and well structured, students get multiple opportunities to apply memory and organization strategies—like chunking, self-monitoring, and deliberate rehearsal—across different contexts. This repeated use helps those strategies become more automatic, which reduces the burden on working memory during new tasks and makes recall more reliable. Over time, the consistent routines and prompts built into intensive instruction create stronger retrieval cues and better persistence, so information is less likely to fade and students are better able to apply what they’ve learned when they need it.