Adaptation of the Children's Kitchen Task Assessment - as an Ecologically Valid Measure of Executive Functions -...

This study aimed to adapt the Children's Kitchen Task Assessment for Hungarian primary school children and to investigate its relationship with an ecologically valid executive function questionnaire and standard computer-based executive function tasks in the context of socioeconomic status.

Our study included 17 children aged 8-12 years, of whom eleven children (64.7%) lived in a town in deep poverty with many families with low socioeconomic status, while the remaining six (35.3%) of the subjects lived in a city in Hungary. Participants completed standard executive function tasks (Go/No-Go, Corsi Block-Tapping Task, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task), as well as the adapted version of the Children's Kitchen Task Assessment. In addition, 14 parents and 13 teachers completed the Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory regarding the participating children.

The Hungarian Children's Kitchen Task demonstrated good interrater reliability (κ = .81) and acceptable internal consistency (α = .68). Performance on the task was found to be signifi cantly related to both standard executive function tasks and the ecologically valid questionnaire. In terms of planning, children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds demonstrated poorer performance (t(15) = 2.87, p ‹ .02, d = 0.13), yet they completed the task in a shorter amount of time than their peers with higher socioeconomic status (t(15) = -2.4, p ‹ .02, d = 1.23).

Executive functions measured in ecologically valid settings demonstrated convergence with other executive function assessment methods. Furthermore, our results suggest that socioeconomic status is related to children's executive functions, especially when the executive functions are measured with tasks resembling more to everyday situations. Our findings have implications for interventions.

(Neuropsychopharmacol Hung 2026; 28(2): 66-84)