Examining an Executive Function Battery for Use with Preschool Children with Disabilities

Kuhn, L. J., Willoughby, M. T., Blair, C. B., & McKinnon, R. (2017). Examining an Executive Function Battery for Use with Preschool Children with Disabilities. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(8), 2586-2594. DOI: 10.1007/s10803-017-3177-2

Performance-based assessments of EF for use with young children who have or are at risk for disabilities are lacking. The current study investigates the use of a computerized battery for children with subclinical behaviors (N = 846) across a variety of developmental disabilities and evaluates practical information about feasibility of task administration. Results reveal that children with disabilities performed similarly to their typically developing peers across a variety of metrics for evaluating the battery, ranging from percent correct scores to administrator quality ratings. Thus, the battery may be considered an easy-to-administer, performance-based assessment tool in which children with disabilities do not perform systemically worse than typically developing peers.