BEHAVIOR RATING

INVENTORY OF
EXECUTIVE
FUNCTION
Authors: Gioia, Isquith, Roth,
Guy, & Kenworthy
By Amanda Medland

BRIEF
Assess Executive Function (EF) behaviours in home and
school environments
Ages 5-18 years old
86 items,
Parent & Teacher Report
8 derived scales
Indexes behavioral regulation and
metacognition
An overall score Global Executive Composite

Who Can Administer the BRIEF?

Professional requirements
No need for formal training in neuropsychology, clinical,
school counseling or related

What are Executive Functions?

Processes responsible for guiding, directing, and
managing cognitive, emotional and behavioural
functions.
Umbrella term
The ability to maintain an appropriate problem solving
set for attainment of a future goal.

Development
To develop a psychometrically sound measure of EF in
children
Easy to administer
Easy to score.
Parent & Teacher report of observable behaviour
Items were collected from actual clinical interview by the
authors
Initial pool of 180 items. Approximately 50 item were
removed. And reassessed for readability.
Edited and reduced to 129 for parents , 127 for teachers.
Edited to final 86 items for both

Standardization
Approximate to the United States
Obtained through public and private schools in Maryland
25 schools sampled, 12 elementary, 9 middle and 4 high
schools
N=18 obtained of patients with TBI
Inclusion 5-18 years
No special education or psychotropic medication use
No more than 10% of questions could have missing responses.

N=1419 Parent forms, 815 girls, 604 boys

N=720 Teacher forms, 403 girls, 317 boys

Inhibit
10 items parent, 10 items teacher
Impulse control, stop behaviour at the proper time
Core deficit in ADHD
Ex. from BRIEF: blurts out things acts too wild or out of control

Shift
8 items parent 10 items teacher
Move freely from one situation, activity or aspect of a problem to
another as the situation demands, transition, solve problems,
switch attention
Children appear rigid or inflexible.
ASD poor shifting ability
Ex. from BRIEF: acts upset by a change in plans thinks too much
about the same topic

Emotional Control
10 items parent, 9 items teacher
Modulate emotional responses appropriately
Ex. from BRIEF mood changes frequently has
explosive, angry outbursts

Initiate
8 items parent, 7 items teacher
Begin a task or activity, independently generate ideas,
want to succeed but cannot get started
Ex. from BRIEF: Is not a self-starter needs to be told
to begin a task even when willing.

Working Memory
10 items parent, 10 items teacher
Hold information in mind for the purpose of completing a task stay
with or stick to an activity
Ex. from BRIEF: forgets what he/she was doing has trouble
remembering things, even for a few minutes

Plan/Organize
12 items parent, 10 items teacher
Anticipate future events, set goal develop appropriate steps ahead
of time to carry out task or action; carry out tasks in a systematic
manner; understand and communicate main ideas or key concepts
Ex. from BRIEF: underestimates time needed to finish tasks has
trouble carrying out the actions needed to reach goals For
Organize gets caught up in details and misses the big picture

Organization of Materials
6 items parent, 7 items teacher
Keep workspace play areas and materials in an orderly
manner
Ex. from BRIEF: has a messy closet leaves a trail of
belongings wherever he/she goes

Monitor
8 items parent, 10 items teacher
Check work assess performance during or after finishing
a task to ensure attainment of goal; keep track of the
effect of own behaviour on others
Ex. from BRIEF: does not realize that certain actions
bother others does not check work for mistakes

Inconsistency
19 items parent, 17 items teacher.
Extent to which the respondent answers similar BRIEF
items in an inconsistent manner

Negativity
10 items parent, 10 items teacher
The extent to which respondent answers selected brief
items in an unusually negative manner

Behavioral Regulation Index (BRI)

Shift cognitive set
Control emotions and behaviour using appropriate
inhibitory control.
Comprised of Inhibit, Shift and Emotional Control scales.
Precursor to problem solving
Guide problem solving, and supports self-regulation

Metacognition Index (MI)

The ability to initiate, plan, organize and sustain future
oriented problem solving in working memory
Ability to actively problem solve
Initiate, working memory, plan/organize, organization of
materials and monitor scores

Global Executive Composite (GEC)

All 8 clinical scales
Useful as a summary measure indexes and individuals
scale scores are recommended
Only useful if there is no significant difference between
BRI and MI

Materials
Professional Manual
Parent Form
Teacher Form
Two-sided Scoring Summary/Profile Form
10 to 15 minutes to complete

Instructions to Parents
Parents observe a lot about their children's problem
solving and behavioral functioning that cannot be
measured in an office visit. Your help is essential to me
as I attempt to understand you childs functioning at
home. Please read the instructions and respond to all of
the items, even if some are difficult or do not seem to
apply. As you will see, the instructions ask you to read a
list of statements that describe childrens behaviour and
indicate whether you child has had any problems with
these behaviours in the past 6 months. If the specific
behaviour has never been a problem in the last 6
months, circle the letter N, if the behaviour has
sometimes been a problem, circle the letter S, if the
behaviour has often been a problem, circle the letter O.
If you have any questions or concerns, please dont
hesitate to ask for my help.

Instructions to Teachers
I am evaluating a child in your class. I need your help to
fully understand his/her learning and behaviour in
school. This form takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
Please read the instructions and respond to all of the
items, even if some are difficult or do not seem to apply.
As you will see, the instructions ask you to read a list of
statements that describe childrens behaviour and
indicate whether this student has had any problems with
these behaviour in the past 6 months. If the specific
behaviour has never been a problem in the last 6
months, circle the letter N, if the behaviour has
sometimes been a problem, circle the letter S, if the
behaviour has often been a problem, circle the letter O.
If you have known the student for less than 6 months,
you may still respond to the questionnaire based on your
experience. If you have any questions or concerns,

Missing Responses
missing items > 14, the BRIEF cannot be appropriately
scored
Respondent should be asked to complete missing items
If 2 or more items that contribute to the calculation of a
scale raw score have missing responses, no raw score
should be calculated.
In scale raw score, missing items <2 get a score of 1.

Do not count any missing Item 73-86 on Parent and 7486 on Teacher

Scoring
Perforated strips, scoring sheet beneath
Raters responses are sheet below with 1 = N, 2 = S, 3=O.
Circled scores transfer into box in that row.
Sum the scores in each column and write the total raw sores at the
bottom of each column (for 8 scales)
Transfer total scale raw score to raw score column in the scoring
summary table
Bottom of each column in the Appendix Tables show the CI values
needed to calculate 90% CI for that scale, index or GEC

Scoring Summary Form

Graphing
At Risk
Clinically Significant

Scoring Negativity
Negativity scaled items N enclosed in bold in the
margins
Look for items scored 3 often.
Negativity scale area on Scoring
summary.
Circle item number that received
score of 3 and enter number in the
bottom of the column to obtain
negativity score

Scoring the Inconsistency

On Protocol: scale items are a circled I in the margins
Transfer item scores for the 10 item pair boxes
For each pair calculate the difference
in item scores for the two items.
Sum the differences values for
the 10 items to obtain the inconsistency.
Label acceptable
questionable or Inconsistent

Reliability
Internal Consistency
Both Parent and Teacher forms internal consistency was high
(.80-.98)

Interrater Reliability
Correlation between teacher and parent is typically
lower (.30-.50) than parent-parent or teacher-teacher
Home and school settings are different, environmental
structure differences
Moderate r = .32 for Parent-teacher

Test-Retest Reliability
Parent normative sample r=.81 over 2 weeks
Teacher r = .87 over 3.5 week

Validity
Measured Content Validity, Construct Validity
Good content and good Construct validity
Content Validity
Strong selected from clinical interviews
Neuropsychologists assigned all questions to a primary
scale and secondary scale
Items with poor agreement across expert were flagged.

Construct Validity
MTMMM was used to examine validity
No other EF measure to compare to but separate indexes
can compare to other similar
ADHD, CBCL parent and teacher
Behaviour Assessment System for Children
Conners Rating Scale

ADHD-Rating Scale-IV
Inattention : working
memory, plan organize
and initiate and
monitor (and
metacognition)
HyperactivityImpulsivity: inhibit, shit
and emotional control
(BRI)

Factor Analysis
Parent 1419 protocols
The traditional method
of determining factors
eigenvalues >1.0 was
overridden.
Selection criterion for
inclusion of a variable
on a factor was a
loading greater
than.40
Initiate loaded on both
but more on #1
Accounted for 76% of
the variance

Factor Analysis
Teacher 72- protocols
Accounted for 83% of the
variance.

Clinical Utility & ADHD Diagnosis

Clearer depiction of EF deficits
Scales are helpful in identifying ADHD
Working memory ADHD inattentive
Inhibit both ADHD hyperactive impulsive and combined
types
EF underlie symptoms of ADHD they are not synonymous
with a diagnosis of ADHD

References
Gioia, G.A., Isquith, P.K., Guy, S. C., Kenworthy, L. (2013).
Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function
professional manual. Lutz, FL: PAR Inc.
Sattler, J.M. (2008). Assessment of Children: Cognitive
Foundations (Fifth edition). San Diego, CA: Jerome M
Sattler, Publisher, Inc. 230-231