Evaluation instruments for executive functions in children and adolescents: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

Introduction

The present study aimed to perform a systematic review of instruments for evaluating the executive functions (EFs) in a pediatric population to assess their measurement properties, focusing on the professional who administers it.

Area covered

A systematic search of the literature was performed on Cinahl, PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of Science and Medline to identify studies in which an instrument for evaluating the EFs was described. Included only were the papers reporting the evaluation of EFs, with any instrument, on a population aged 0 to 18 consisting of healthy individuals or people with neurodevelopmental disorder. The evaluation of the Risk of Bias has been carried out with the administration of a part of the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) Checklist.

Expert opinion

The search ended on the 2nd of August. Only 19 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the study; the papers refer to 16 different evaluation tools of the EF. Analysis of the methodological quality shows that most of the papers assessed received an ‘inadequate’ or ‘insufficient’ score. Indeed, only two articles received six or five ‘sufficient’ out of 8 items; instead, ten papers received one or zero ‘sufficient.’

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescents
• children
• executive functions
• neurodevelopment
• pediatric assessment
• validated instruments

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewers disclosure

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial relationships or otherwise to disclose.

Author contribution

GG, LP: conception, the design of the work; the acquisition, analysis. AB, MT, DV: data interpretation; have drafted the work. GG, LP, AB, MT, DV: have approved the most recent submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND have agreed to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.

Availability of data and material

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Figures and tables

Authors declare that all figures and tables are original.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.