UDL 3.0 Made Executive Function Foundational. Here's What That Means for Your Program.
June 29
In 2024, CAST gave executive function its own row in the Universal Design for Learning guidelines. Here's why that shift matters for disability services and transition programs — and what to do about it.
"Coaching" has become one of the most-used words in postsecondary disability support, and one of the least examined. So it's worth asking plainly: what does the research actually say? The short version: the evidence is young, but it points consistently in one direction.
What the studies actually show
It's worth being precise about what the research does and doesn't show. The most-cited single study, Richman, Rademacher & Maitland's "Coaching and College Success" (2014), is a small mixed-methods study: 24 students who self-selected into a coached group or a comparison group, not a randomized trial. Its quantitative differences did not reach statistical significance, which the authors attribute to the tiny sample. But its qualitative findings were consistent: students reported that coaching improved their self-determination, executive functioning (self-awareness, emotion regulation, self-talk, problem-solving), academic skills, and subjective well-being. The honest read is an encouraging signal, not proof.
The mechanism, in one line
That study names the mechanism better than I could. Citing Barkley, it frames the core challenge as one of performance, not knowledge: students struggle "not in knowing what to do but in doing what they know," and coaching helps them act at the "point of performance."
That's the gap between the appointments, in a sentence.
What it suggests
Coaching builds the right things
Across studies and student self-reports, coaching is tied to gains in executive function and self-determination. Parker & Boutelle (2009) framed it as a vehicle for self-determination: helping students set goals, act on them, and learn from the experience, rather than having structure imposed on them. Done well, it's scaffolding designed to fade.
Where the gap is
It hasn't solved scale
Coaching works in studies because, in studies, there's a coach. In the real world a single coordinator may carry 100-plus students, and the moments that matter most happen at 9pm, not in office hours. The evidence validates the what; it hasn't solved the how, at scale.
An honest scope note
This evidence base is concentrated in students with ADHD and learning disabilities. It's promising but thinner for students with intellectual disabilities, which is exactly the population many transition and CTP programs serve, a gap worth naming rather than papering over.
Why we're paying attention
This is the gap we think about constantly. The research gives us confidence in the mechanism; the staffing reality tells us the mechanism has to reach students between the human touchpoints, not only during them. And the field still lacks longitudinal outcome data on executive-function growth, which means whoever generates it, in honest pilot conditions, will be contributing something the whole field needs.
We'll be at AHEAD 2026 to learn from programs already doing this work. If you run coaching at your institution, formally or informally, we'd genuinely like to hear what's working and where it breaks down.
The short version
The short version
The coaching evidence is young and mostly small-scale, but it's consistent: coaching is tied to gains in executive function and self-determination, and it works at the "point of performance" where students struggle to do what they already know. The unsolved problem isn't whether coaching helps, it's delivering it at scale, in the moments that matter.
Primary sources reviewed: Richman, E. L., Rademacher, K. N. & Maitland, T. L., "Coaching and College Success," Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 27(1), 33–52 (2014) — a small (n=24) mixed-methods, quasi-experimental study; quantitative results were not statistically significant, and its positive findings are qualitative (student self-report). "Point of performance" framing per Barkley (1997), as cited in Richman et al. Parker, D. R. & Boutelle, K., "Executive Function Coaching for College Students with Learning Disabilities and ADHD," Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 24, 204–215 (2009). Broader review: Ahmann, Saviet & Tuttle, "A Descriptive Review of ADHD Coaching Research" (JPED, 2018) — cited secondhand; verify before quoting. Population statistics via the National Center for College Students with Disabilities (NCCSD).
