Direct assessments of executive functions (EFs) are increasingly used in research and clinical settings, with a central assumption that they assess “universal” underlying skills. Their use is spreading globally, raising questions about the cultural appropriateness of assessments devised in Western industrialized countries. We selectively reviewed multidisciplinary evidence and theory to identify sets of cultural preferences that may be at odds with the implicit assumptions of EF assessments. These preferences relate to motivation and compliance; cultural expectations for interpersonal engagement; contextualized vs. academic thinking; cultural notions of speed and time; the willingness to be silly, be incorrect, or do the opposite; and subject-matter familiarity. In each case, we discuss how the cultural preference may be incompatible with the assumptions of assessments, and how future research and practice can address the issue. Many of the cultural preferences discussed differ between interdependent and independent cultures and between schooled and unschooled populations. Adapting testing protocols to these cultural preferences in different contexts will be important for expanding our scientific understanding of EF from the narrow slice of the human population that has participated in the research to date.

Measures of children’s working memory (WM) need to reflect their diverse learning methods. This study validated a novel embodied WM task—the Body Span—that relies on observational learning and minimizes the need for academic concepts or digital tools. The Body Span was administered alongside verbal and visuospatial WM tasks to 448 children, ages 5 to 11 years old (M = 7.96, SD = 1.99; 50% female), in rural Bangladesh. Children observed and tapped different culturally appropriate body parts in sequences of increasing length in the Body Span. The novel Body Span showed strong convergence with existing WM measures and showed unique predictive validity across cognitive and behavioral outcomes, underscoring its value as both a complementary and stand-alone assessment.

Direct assessments of executive function (EF) are increasingly used in research and clinical settings, with a central assumption that they assess “universal” underlying skills. Their use is spreading globally, raising questions about the cultural appropriateness of assessments devised in Western, industrialized countries. We reviewed multidisciplinary evidence and theory to identify sets of cultural preferences that may be at odds with the implicit assumptions of EF assessments. These preferences relate to motivation and compliance; cultural expectations for interpersonal engagement; contextualized vs. academic thinking; cultural notions of speed and time; the willingness to be silly, be incorrect, or do the opposite; and subject-matter familiarity. In each case, we discuss how the cultural preference may be incompatible with the assumptions of assessments, and how future research and practice can address the issue. Many of the cultural preferences discussed differ between interdependent and independent cultures and between schooled and unschooled populations. Adapting testing protocols to these cultural preferences in different contexts will be important for expanding our scientific understanding of EF from the narrow slice of the human population that has participated in the research to date.

Existing adult-report survey measures provide crucial information about children’s executive function (EF) development across contexts, but lack cultural relevance and ecological validity. To address these limitations, we introduce the Executive Function from Observation and Reflection Tool (EFFORT), a publicly available, open-source item bank designed for cross-cultural adaptation that includes 32 parallel items for caregivers and teachers across six EF domains: sustained attention, response inhibition, interference suppression, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning/organization. EFFORT additionally includes 10 assessor report items intended for use following a structured, standardized assessment session. This study presents the first validation of the tool within seven countries (Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Haiti, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States) leveraging caregiver, teacher, and assessor observations of 1738 children (aged 3–11 years). Findings revealed acceptable fit for a six-factor structure for caregiver and teacher reports that were not empirically distinct, but yielded highly reliable composites. We further validated a 12-item short form for caregivers and teachers that demonstrated strong unidimensionality, gender invariance, and age-related increases. We demonstrated significant convergence of a short-form caregiver and teacher composite with the assessor-reported measures, as well as convergence of all three adult reports with direct assessments of children’s EF skills. This new tool holds promise to advance the science of how children develop and apply EFs to accomplish everyday goals across different cultural settings and in understudied populations.

Existing adult-report survey measures provide crucial information about children’s executive function (EF) development across contexts, but lack cultural relevance and ecological validity. To address these limitations, we introduce the Executive Function From Observation and Reflection Tool (EFFORT), a publicly available, open-source item bank designed for cross-cultural adaptation that includes 32 parallel items for caregivers and teachers across six EF domains: sustained attention, response inhibition, interference suppression, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning/organization. EFFORT additionally includes 10 assessor-report items intended for use following a structured, standardized assessment session. This study presents the first multinational validation of the tool across seven countries (Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Haiti, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States) leveraging caregiver, teacher, and assessor observations of 1,738 children (aged 3–11 years). Findings revealed acceptable fit for a six-factor structure for caregiver and teacher reports that were not empirically distinct, but yielded highly reliable composites. We further validated a 12-item short form for caregiver and teacher that demonstrated strong unidimensionality, gender invariance, and age-related increases. We demonstrated significant convergence of a short-form caregiver and teachers composite with the assessor-reported measures, as well as convergence of all three adult reports with direct assessments of children’s EF skills. This new tool holds promise to advance the science of how children develop and apply EFs to accomplish everyday goals across different cultural settings and in understudied populations.