: Measurement of executive functions in children has focused on """"""""specific"""""""" competencies that can be measured often within a laboratory setting and within the limited time segments that are required to complete a specific task or test. Focused, highly structured and time limited techniques such as most cognitive, academic and neuropsychological tests are not necessarily able to assess interactive aspects of cognition and decision-making and can not simulate or approximate the complexity of real life situations (i.e. can not provide a measure of, or prognostication for advanced educational, vocational and societal participation). Further, there is a paucity of measurement techniques that have real life significance. Evaluation of children's executive functions in developmental cognitive studies is rare and they are not well analyzed in relationship to achievements and abilities. It is important, therefore, to identify both the components and integrative processes that contribute to improved performance in children. The investigators propose to quantitatively measure how children think, how they solve problems, and how they make decisions. That quantification will employ a reliable and well-validated cognitive simulation paradigm that draws upon fundamental executive capacities such as working memory, information search and utilization, initiation, planning and cognitive flexibility and applies these capacities to real world relevant functioning. Few such measures have been developed, particularly measures with any real-life significance.
