title: Functioning in the Real World: Using Storytelling to Improve Validity in the Assessment of Executive Functions.
abstract: Real-world contexts differ in the clarity of expectations for desired responses, as do assessment procedures, ranging along a continuum from maximal conditions that provide well-defined expectations to typical conditions that provide ill-defined expectations. Executive functions guide effective social interactions, but relations between them have not been studied with measures that are matched in the clarity of response expectations. In predicting teacher-rated social competence (SC) from kindergarteners' performance on tasks of executive functions (EFs), we found better model-data fit indexes when both measures were similar in the clarity of response expectations for the child. The maximal EF measure, the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment, presents well-defined response expectations, and the typical EF measure, 5 scales from the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), presents ill-defined response expectations (i.e., Abstraction, Perceptual Integration, Cognitive-Experiential Integration, and Associative Thinking). To assess SC under maximal and typical conditions, we used 2 teacher-rated questionnaires, with items, respectively, that emphasize well-defined and ill-defined expectations: the Behavior Rating Inventory: Behavioral Regulation Index and the Social Skills Improvement System: Social Competence Scale. Findings suggest that matching clarity of expectations improves generalization across measures and highlight the usefulness of the TAT to measure EF.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Counseling , Higher Education, and Special Education, University of Maryland , College Park.
authors.forename: Lee A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Annotti
authors.affiliation: a Department of Counseling , Higher Education, and Special Education, University of Maryland , College Park.
authors.forename: Hedwig
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Teglasi
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003142:Communication; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D033262:Narration; D010551:Personality; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011386:Projective Techniques; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013803:Thematic Apperception Test