Psychologists introduce unique behavioural questionnaire
Research tool for everyday actions is new in the Netherlands
Psychologists Mariëtte Huizinga and Diana Smidts of the University of Amsterdam have introduced a behavioural questionnaire to help determine how children respond to everyday situations. This originally American questionnaire is unique in the Netherlands.
Psychologists Mariëtte Huizinga and Diana Smidts of the University of Amsterdam have introduced a behavioural questionnaire to help determine how children respond to everyday situations. This originally American questionnaire is unique in the Netherlands.The questionnaire, which is called BRIEF (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function), measures what are referred to as "executive functions" of children; in other words, the psychological processes that are important for self-regulation and (socially) adjusted behaviour. These executive functions include inhibition, cognitive flexibility, emotion regulation, initiative taking, working memory, planning and organizing, orderliness / tidiness and behavioural evaluation. These functions are reflected in eight clinical scales on the BRIEF. "Some children have difficulty adapting to everyday situations because their executive functions are faulty," Mariëtte Huizinga says. "However, up until now we did not have an effective way to measure this in the Netherlands. That has changed now that we have introduced the BRIEF."
Pioneers
Up until the Eighties, it was believed that children did not have any executive functions. But researchers in the United States quickly discovered that children in fact do have executive functions; they simply are not yet fully developed. Coincidentally, while pursuing their Master's and Doctorate degrees Huizinga and Smidts both worked with pioneers in the field of executive functions: Vicki Anderson (University of Melbourne) and Marilyn Welsh (University of Northern Colorado). The lack of any tools for measuring children's executive functions in the Netherlands prompted Huizinga and Smidts to introduce the BRIEF in the Netherlands.Dutch standards
The BRIEF has been used in the United States with great success. Huizinga and Smidts translated the questionnaire, adapted it to the Dutch situation and established the standard for the Netherlands. Smidts: "In order to figure out what constituted normal and divergent scores, we established the standard by having nearly 1,000 parents and 300 teachers fill out the questionnaire. When selecting the subjects in both groups we made every effort to achieve the most accurate representation of Dutch society. Then we established the standard for the Netherlands, which incidentally is not that different from the American."Two versions
Clinical and school psychologists and special education experts can use the BRIEF when they want to assess the executive functions of a specific child. In order to get a good idea, the health care professional or educator will ask both the parents and the teacher to fill out a questionnaire; there are two versions available. Each of the questions corresponds to one of the eight clinical scales. After answering the 75 questions, which include "Gets into trouble when there is no adult keeping an eye on him/her" and "Becomes upset when plans are changed," with "never," "sometimes" or "often," the health care professional or educator can use the self-scoring form to interpret the answers with ease. Smidts: "It makes the questionnaire ideally suited to using on the job. Of course, this tool is not intended to replace other tools such as the IQ test or the personality test. Nevertheless, the BRIEF is an important addition to what was already available."Huizinga and Smidts are hoping to conduct a follow-up study in the near future on understanding the underlying factors of aberrant executive functions. Huizinga: "Once you have that knowledge, you can apply interventions more effectively. The way we see it, the introduction of the BRIEF is only just the beginning."
Author: Esther van Bochove, Communication Department