ABSTRACT

Michael Posner’s comments serve to underscore the importance and relevance of executive function assessment in any attempt to gain a comprehensive understanding of the mental capacities of a child. The expectation that symbol system executive function measures are appropriate for effective identification of executive function strengths and weaknesses in all situations has produced somewhat misleading findings in the research literature. In all cases, the assessment methods employed should attempt to determine the effectiveness of executive functions for the cueing and directing of perceiving, feeling, thinking, and acting in relation to self, others, the world, and the cultural tools of communication. In terms of content coverage, interview techniques are limited only by the clinician’s knowledge of executive functions and skill in conducting interviews. In such an instance, interpretation of the objective score results must be mediated by the process observations related to the presence of confounding executive function miscues.