Implications of Using the BRIEF-Preschool With School-Age Children With Down Syndrome.
Anna J Esbensen, Emily K Schworer, Nancy R Lee and 3 others
PMID 38147888WHAT IT FOUND
For school-age children with Down syndrome, preschool executive-function scores based on cognitive or language age agreed with the school-age questionnaire on some parts, but not all, so use caution.
Key findings
01The Stanford-Binet abbreviated battery was chosen for main comparisons because it produced the most usable age-equivalent scores, and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test was also used because its age-equivalent scores did not differ significantly from the other language or cognitive measures.
02When the preschool form was scored by age-equivalent score, it correlated acceptably with the school-age form for Inhibit, Shift, Emotional Control, Working Memory, and overall executive function, but not for Plan/Organize, and correlations were weaker when age-equivalent scores were too high.
03For clinical cut-off decisions, agreement was acceptable for Inhibit, Emotional Control, and overall executive function, but not for all subscales, so interpretation should be cautious.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study evaluated assessment scoring, not whether any intervention helps executive functioning. Age-equivalent scores have limited reliability and validity because they are based on median age scores for corresponding raw scores. Only Stanford-Binet and Peabody age-equivalent scores were presented for parsimony, although patterns were comparable with other measures. The Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test cannot generate age-equivalent scores below 4 years 0 months, so it is limited for scoring the BRIEF-P across its full age range. The order of cognition and language tests was not counterbalanced or randomized. The sample was predominantly White and non-Hispanic. Children with age-equivalent scores below the BRIEF-P range were few and were not analyzed as a separate group.
Declared interests
The article lists NIH extramural and non-U.S. government research support. Families were paid for participation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the preschool executive-function questionnaire can replace the school-age questionnaire for all subscales in school-age children with Down syndrome. Some subscales agreed, but Plan/Organize did not meet the acceptable correlation threshold, and clinical cut-off agreement was below 90% for some subscales.