Abstract

MARTONI, Alana Tosta; TREVISAN, Bruna Tonietti; DIAS, Natália Martins  and  SEABRA, Alessandra Gotuzo. Executive functions: relation between evaluation by parents and teachers and the performance of children. Temas psicol. [online]. 2016, vol.24, n.1, pp.173-188. ISSN 1413-389X.  https://doi.org/10.9788/TP2016.1-12.

Executive functions (EF) enable us to regulate our behavior. In children, these abilities have been evaluated by performance tests and scales filled by parents/teachers. However, the literature has shown that the correlation between different types of psychological measurements and between different respondents is, at best, moderate. This study investigated: (a) the agreement between parents and teachers in rating scales of EF and indicators of inattention and hyperactivity, and (b) the relationship between scores on the scales and the performance of children on a test of inhibition, a component of EF. Participants were 144 children (mean age = 6.16y) from 1^st and 2^nd phases of Children's Education and 1^st grade of Elementary of a public school in a town of Sao 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 on the scales. Correlations were more frequent in 1^st phase children. Parents indicated more difficulties in children than teachers did. Low to moderate correlations between children's performance on the Stroop and responses of informants were found. With school progression, the CHEXI tended to correlate with increasingly complex measures of Stroop. Therefore, there was concordance, low in general, between scales and performance testing, as well as between responses of parents and teachers, corroborating the importance of considering different sources of information on child assessment.

Keywords : Cognitive process; child development; child assessment; executive functions; attention.

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