Not "why can't this student do the task?" but "where does this task break down?"
The answer is usually in the task. No account or signup needed.
Show where a task exceeds what working memory and attention can hold, then identify exactly what to change.
K-8 teachers, special education staff, intervention specialists, and school support teams working with students who struggle with attention and executive function.
These tools don't diagnose students. They diagnose tasks. The student isn't the problem to solve.
They happen when the task is designed for a brain that works differently than the one in front of it. Three things drive most of it.
Multi-step directions, split-attention demands, and fast verbal delivery overwhelm working memory before the work even begins.
Other inputs, sounds, movement, open tasks, unfinished thoughts. All compete for the same limited attentional resources.
Without a clear starting point, visible steps, or an external anchor, the task dissolves before momentum can build.
The student knows what to do. Nothing is happening. The blank page is not a motivation problem. It is a task design problem.
Use the Task Start Tool →Started fine, then lost the thread. Directions stopped making sense. The task is asking for more than working memory can hold.
Use the Attention Load Checker →What looks like defiance or avoidance is usually a processing breakdown. There's a cause. This finds it before it escalates.
Use the Behavior Interpretation Tool →Each tool focuses on a single classroom challenge. Enter a real situation and get a specific read on what is breaking and what to change.
Evaluate how much a classroom task demands from student attention and working memory. Get a clear read on how heavy the task is, where it is likely to break, and specific fixes you can apply in under two minutes.
Turn overloaded note-taking tasks into formats students can use. Get a student version, guided notes, what to listen for, and teacher delivery fixes.
Paste your assignment directions and get a version students can follow. Clear steps, a defined starting point, and no hidden assumptions.
For students who can't get started. Identify why initiation is breaking down and get a first step script, a student prompt, and a teacher move for right now.
Describe a behavior you're seeing in the classroom. Get a clear read on the most probable breakdown, what to rule out first, and what to try.
Paste what you said or planned to say. Get a version that removes the steps students have to figure out on their own, and gives them a clearer path forward.
When a student shuts down, acts out, or stares at a blank page, the instinct is to look at the student. What's wrong with them? Are they trying? Do they care?
The research points somewhere else. Many students who struggle in class are experiencing cognitive overload: the task is asking for more than their working memory and attention systems can give at one time. That's not a character flaw. It's a mismatch between task design and how certain brains process information.
Dr. Russell Barkley, one of the leading researchers on ADHD and executive function, puts it this way: students with ADHD don't have a deficit in knowing what to do. They have a deficit in doing what they know, when tasks require holding information in mind, switching between demands, or sustaining effort without immediate feedback.
Barkley, R.A. (2012). Executive Functions: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They Evolved. Guilford Press.
Dr. William Benninger, a clinical psychologist and adjunct professor at Ohio State University with over thirty years of experience treating ADHD, has spent his career helping educators understand that what looks like defiance or laziness is often a processing breakdown. The fix isn't more pressure. It's better task design.
Beck, S.J., Hanson, C.A., Puffenberger, S.S., Benninger, K.L., & Benninger, W.B. (2010). A controlled trial of working memory training for children and adolescents with ADHD. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 39(6), 825-836.
Show Your Work was built on this foundation. The tools here don't treat students as the variable to fix. They treat the task as the variable.
Students with ADHD show consistent deficits in working memory, the system responsible for holding and using information while completing a task. Multi-step instructions, split-attention demands, and fast-paced delivery all hit this system hardest.
Tasks that require students to do two things at once, such as listening and writing, reading and answering, or watching and taking notes, create split-attention demands that increase cognitive load, especially for students with executive function challenges.
When tasks are structured to reduce unnecessary cognitive demands, through chunking, visual supports, and reduced simultaneous processing, students with attention challenges show meaningful improvement in completion and comprehension.
Barkley emphasizes that support needs to happen where and when the student is struggling, not after the fact. Redesigning the task in the moment is one of the most useful interventions available to teachers.
No training required. No jargon. Describe what's happening and the tool does the analysis.
Type in what you assigned, what you said, or what behavior you're seeing. Real classroom language works fine.
The tool adjusts its analysis based on developmental expectations for your grade band.
A score, an explanation of what's happening, and specific fixes you can use immediately.
Every output is written to be used in the next class period, not filed away for later.
K-8 teachers who have students struggling with attention, task completion, or following directions and want practical tools that don't require extra training.
Specialists supporting students with IEPs and 504 plans who need structured ways to evaluate and adjust classroom tasks for their caseloads.
Reading and math interventionists where task design needs to be modified to reduce barriers to the actual skill being taught.
Parents navigating homework battles who want to understand what is making a task hard, and get a specific thing to try tonight. More here →
These tools are built on decades of research into ADHD, executive function, and how task design affects learning.
One of the most cited researchers in the field of ADHD and executive function. Barkley's work establishes that ADHD is fundamentally a disorder of executive self-regulation, with working memory and behavioral inhibition at its core. His research informs how these tools evaluate task demands.
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ohio State University and clinician with over thirty years treating ADHD in children, adolescents, and adults. His research on working memory training for students with ADHD demonstrates that structured, targeted interventions improve executive functioning and attention symptoms.
The framework behind the Attention Load Checker comes from cognitive load theory, which describes the limits of working memory and how task design either respects or exceeds those limits. Split attention, redundancy, and element interactivity are all load factors the tools evaluate.
Barkley's research emphasizes that students with ADHD benefit most from support delivered at the exact moment and place where they're struggling, not in isolated training sessions. These tools are designed to produce outputs teachers can use in the next class period, not a week from now.
Three reference decks and a glossary built on the research behind the tools. Each one links to the tools that put it into practice.
What Barkley's executive function model means in practice, how working memory breaks down under classroom conditions, and why the task is the variable worth fixing first.
View the slidesThree questions to check cognitive load before students see a task. A rough scoring approach and before-and-after examples from real classroom scenarios.
View the slidesFour categories, six common patterns, what the behavior probably isn't, and what to try before escalating.
View the slidesPlain-language definitions of the terms used in these tools. ADHD, executive function, cognitive load, IEP and 504, every term connected to the research and the relevant tool.
Browse the glossaryFour modules that show what the research says about attention, learning, and where classroom systems break. Written for teachers, parents, and anyone who wants to understand why task design matters.
What happens inside working memory when distraction hits, why the research numbers are not small, and what the guided vs. unguided device finding means for how classrooms are designed.
Read the researchWhat a high-stimulation, always-connected environment does to how students learn, remember, and read. The gains are real. The costs are real, too.
Read the researchThe traditional classroom model runs on assumptions that research has tested. Four specific break points, the evidence behind each one, and what they mean for task design.
Read the researchWhat the evidence shows about what works. Interventions with the strongest research base, and how they connect to the tools on this site.
Coming soonQuestions, feedback, or something you wish these tools did, send it over.