Assessing Executive Functioning as an Extended Phenotype

Abstract

NOTICE TO NON-PROFESSIONALS The information contained in this newsletter is not intended as a substitute for consultation with health care professionals. As I have noted before, the term executive functioning (EF) is not defined operationally and lacks a consensus definition. There are far too many constructs being aligned under this umbrella term—33 at last count—and installing some sort of homunculus in the frontal lobe that makes it the “executive” brain is unhelpful. As a consequence, when it comes to selecting measures to assess it, nearly anything goes; any measure or test can be declared executive in nature by mere assertion, as it cannot be checked against a reasonable operational definition to determine the truth of the claim. A further problem is that tests designed to assess EF have exceptionally poor ecological validity (Barkley, 2011a), a problem that has been recognized for some time (Burgess, Alderman, Evans, Emslie, & Wilson, 1998), but this has had little impact on decreasing the use of such tests in clinical practice. In my new theoretical book (Barkley, 2012a), I define EF starting with one of its most common attributes– –self-regulation (Eslinger, 1996). Self-regulation (SR) is any action directed at the self that is used to modify behavior so as to alter the likelihood of a later consequence (self-change to improve one’s future). An EF is the type of self-directed action an individual uses for self-regulation (Barkley 1997). It is a specific class of self-regulatory action, and I can identify six such selfdirected activities, all of which by adulthood typically occur privately (mentally), but most of which can be seen overtly early in their development. They are: