Adult reports and direct assessments of preschoolers' executive function: Patterns of convergence and divergence

Adult-reported surveys are more cost-effective for measuring children's executive function (EF) skills than direct child assessments, which are often resource-intensive. This study examined the extent to which teacher and parent reports align with direct assessments (performance-based measures) of preschoolers' EF skills. Participants included 244 children aged 5-6 years (48.0% girls; 97.5% Chinese) from Hong Kong kindergartens and their parents and teachers. Children completed tasks assessing inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and behavioral self-regulation. Teachers and parents completed the Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory, measuring working memory and inhibition difficulties. Teacher-reported working memory difficulties were negatively associated with all EF task performance, while teacher-reported inhibition difficulties were negatively associated with inhibitory control and behavioral self-regulation tasks only. Parent-reported working memory difficulties were negatively associated with children's performance on the working memory and behavioral self-regulation tasks, and parent-reported inhibition difficulties were negatively associated with inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility tasks. Parental education moderated the association between parent reports and direct assessment for working memory. Among more educated parents, parent-reported working memory difficulties were negatively associated with all EF tasks, and parent-reported inhibition difficulties were negatively associated with the inhibitory control task. EF difficulties reported by less educated parents were not associated with any tasks. Adult-reported surveys remain widely used in EF research, but our findings indicate that they do not always align with children's task performance. This evidence highlights the importance of considering informant characteristics and using multimethod, multi-informant approaches to capture children's EF across home and school contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).