Executive Function Consultation, Education and Skills (EXCEL) Clinic

The EXCEL Clinic (Executive Function Consultation, Education and Skills Clinic) within CHOP’s Cancer Center provides services for children and adolescents who are at risk for executive function (EF) weakness. The EXCEL Clinic primarily supports children who have undergone cranial surgery, cranial radiation, intrathecal chemotherapy, intensive cancer treatment at a young age, or who have a cancer predisposition syndrome. Our executive function expert will recommend interventions that can help your child overcome his or her EF challenges.

Try These Things at Home

These interventions don’t just target the executive functions — they address the external environment, too. In very precise ways, they put more supports into the system to take the burden off what might not be working internally for your child. That might mean adjusting the environment so that its demands don’t bring out your child’s worst self. Or, it might mean tweaking a parent’s response so that your child can harness more of his cognitive strengths.

Our Team

Iris Paltin, PhD, is a pediatric neuropsychologist with the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Cancer Center and Neuro-Oncology Program at CHOP.

Girl and boy smiling

What to Expect

You and your child or adolescent will meet with a pediatric neuropsychologist for approximately one hour. 

Teenage boy smiling

Executive Function Interventions

These interventions aim to create new habits that can sidestep or override a child’s cognitive challenges.