Reliability of Informant-Report Measures of Executive Functioning in Children With Down Syndrome.
The BRIEF gives dependable snapshots of executive function in children with Down syndrome.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Smit et al. (2019) asked parents and teachers to fill out the BRIEF rating scale. The kids had Down syndrome.
They checked if the answers stayed the same across raters and over time. This is called reliability.
What they found
The BRIEF showed good internal consistency. That means items within each scale hang together.
Parent and teacher scores matched well enough. The tool looks solid for this group.
How this fits with other research
Austin et al. (2015) already showed the preschool BRIEF-P holds up in Down syndrome. Smit et al. (2019) now backs the school-age form.
Waldron et al. (2023) later confirmed the newer BRIEF2 also works, building on this groundwork.
Scior et al. (2023) tried three performance tasks for cognitive flexibility and found none were reliable. Their struggle highlights why caregiver tools like the BRIEF are needed.
Why it matters
You can trust BRIEF scores when parents or teachers flag planning or self-control issues in kids with Down syndrome. Use the profiles to pick targets like breaking tasks into smaller steps or adding visual cues. Skip pricey lab tasks that may not hold up anyway.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The current study evaluates the psychometric properties of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) with children with Down syndrome. Caregivers of 84 children with Down syndrome rated their child's behavior with the BRIEF. Teacher ratings were obtained for 57 children. About 40% of children with Down syndrome were reported by parents, and 70% by teachers, to exhibit clinically significant challenges with executive functioning. Distribution of scores was normal, internal consistency for subscales was questionable to primarily excellent, and inter-rater reliability was poor to good. Normative data conversions controlled for age, IQ, and gender differences, with some exceptions. The study findings suggest that the BRIEF and its subscales generally performed in a psychometrically sound manner among children with Down syndrome.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2019 · doi:10.1542/peds.2011-1605