Lu Wang, Alisha R. Pollastri, Pieter J. Vuijk, Erin N. Hill, Brenda A. Lee, Anna Samkavitz1, Ellen B. Braaten, J. Stuart Ablon, and Alysa E. Doyle
In this paper, we examined the Think:Kids skills assessment survey, called the Thinking Skills Inventory (TSI), to see if results on the TSI were comparable to much longer and more costly measures that are usually given during neuropsychological assessments. For this study, parents whose children were receiving neuropsychological testing were asked to complete a TSI about their children’s skills in five areas: attention and working memory, cognitive flexibility, language and communication, emotion- and self-regulation, and social thinking.
The scores on the TSI were correlated with the other neuropsychological measures, and scores on the TSI predicted several psychological disorders as well as aggressive behavior. This suggests that the TSI, a brief and free parent-report measure, can be used to screen for cognitive skill deficits that are relevant to children’s psychological needs and treatment. The TSI may be useful in youth mental health settings to assist with treatment planning and to inform whether a child should receive further evaluation.
