Executive functions: Relation between evaluation by parents and teachers and the performance of children

Martoni A.T.; Trevisan B.T.; Dias N.M.; Seabra A.G.

Executive functions: Relation between evaluation by parents and teachers and the performance of children

Tipo

Artigo

Data de publicação

2016

Periódico

Temas em Psicologia

Citações (Scopus)

1

Autores

Martoni A.T.
Trevisan B.T.
Dias N.M.
Seabra A.G.

Resumo

Executive functions (EF) enable individuals to regulate their behavior. In children, these abilities have been evaluated by performance tests and scales completed by parents/teachers. However, the literature has shown that the correlation between different types of psychological measures and between different respondents is, at best, moderate. This study investigated: (a) the concordance between parents and teachers in rating scales of EF and indicators of inattention and hyperactivity, and (b) the relation between scores in the scales and the performance of children in a test of inhibition, a component of EF. Participants were 144 children (mean age = 6.16y) of the 1st and 2nd phases of Early Childhood Education and 1st grade of Elementary Education of a public school in a city of São Paulo, their parents and teachers. Parents and teachers completed the Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory (CHEXI) and MTA-SNAP-IV. Children responded to the Semantic Stroop Test. There were significant correlations, low to moderate, between responses of parents and teachers in the scales. Correlations were more frequent in 1st phase children. Parents indicated more difficulties than teachers in the children. Low to moderate correlations between the performance of the children in the Stroop test and responses of informants were found. With school progression, the CHEXI tended to correlate with increasingly complex measures of the Stroop test. Therefore, there was concordance, generally low, between the scales and performance test, as well as between the responses of parents and teachers, corroborating the importance of considering different sources of information in childhood evaluation.