Within an individual evaluation, a child's approach to each task can reveal significant information about executive strengths and weaknesses. Although some tests are explicitly designed to assess aspects of EF, all components of the assessment process provide new information to build, test, support, and/or reject a hypothesis regarding EF and EdF. The recommendations provided in this chapter for record review, observation, interview, questionnaires, and rating scales are good practice for any assessment; however, they are particularly critical when evaluating EF, as subtle aspects of EdF can be difficult to capture with standardized testing. It is important to remember that the presence or absence of EdF is not uniformly diagnostic, although EdF may suggest certain diagnostic considerations (see Section II).

Key issues

1. Nearly every test involves EF. EF skills are ubiquitous and it is impossible to exclude them from an evaluation. For example, most standard psychometric measures require some degree of planning, strategy, or inhibition for their completion. The opposite is also true; most tests identified as primary “EF assessment tools” involve other cognitive processes as well. This has been called “task impurity”. As a result, other tests (including intellectual functioning and academic achievement) and behavior observations provide information about EF as well (see Table 4.1 for examples). It is important to recognize these elements and their role in assessment and identification.

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