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This study investigated the relations among executive functions and cognitive abilities through a joint exploratory factor analysis and joint conÞrmatory factor analysis of 25 test scores from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System and the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities. Participants were 100 children and adolescents recruited from general education classrooms. Principal axis factoring followed by an oblique rotation yielded a six-factor solution. The Schmid-Leiman transformation was then used to examine the relations between speciÞc cognitive ability factors and a general factor. A variety of hypothesis-driven models were also tested using conÞrmatory factor analysis. Results indicated that all tests measure the general factor, and 24 tests measure at least one of Þve broad cognitive ability factors outlined by the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities. These results, with limitations considered, add to the body of evidence supporting the conßuence of measures of executive functions and measures of cognitive abilities derived from individual testing. C 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.In recent years, a number of assessment instruments measuring executive functions (e.g., Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000) and books targeting them (e.g., McClosky, Perkins, & Van Diviner, 2008) have been marketed to school psychologists and other professionals engaged in assessment of children and adolescents. Executive functions can be conceived as the set of cognitive processes that promote the organization of thought and behavior, but, like the term intelligence, its deÞnitions vary substantially. For example, some equate executive functions with self-regulation, which seems to describe something much more general than a cognitive process. Eslinger (1996) offered the following deÞnition of executive functions after reviewing chapters by experts devoted to conceptualizing and measuring them:Executive functions are deÞned as psychological processes that have the purpose of controlling implementation of activation-inhibition response sequences that is guided by diverse neural representations (verbal The Woodcock-Muñoz Foundation provided Þnancial support for the study. The opinions expressed in this manuscript do not necessarily reßect those of the Woodcock-Muñoz Foundation.

This study examines cognitive ability profiles of children with specific agebased normative weaknesses in reading comprehension and compares those profiles to the profiles of (a) children with at least average achievement in reading comprehension, reading decoding skills, and mathematics and (b) children with low achievement across the 3 achievement areas. When compared across 9 cognitive ability composite scores derived from Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory and measured by the Woodcock-Johnson III [Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather (2001). Woodcock-Johnson. Itasca, IL: Riverside], groups differed in overall level of performance. When individual abilities were considered, the poor comprehenders scored significantly lower than the average achievement group on all nine composite scores and significantly lower than the normative population on all composite scores except Processing Speed and Long-Term Retrieval. In contrast, the poor comprehenders also scored significantly higher than the low achievement group on all composite scores except for Visual-Spatial Thinking and Phonemic Awareness. Although the poor comprehenders as a group scored lowest on composite scores measuring language-and knowledge-based abilities, review of the profiles of individual poor comprehenders revealed no consistent pattern of performance across cognitive ability composite scores.

Group and individual broad ability profiles of children with mental retardation and a matched sample of children with average achievement was investigated through use of the 7 Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) factor clusters from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities. Results indicate that, as a group, the ranked performance of the children with mental retardation on the CHC factor clusters was largely consistent with the clusters' g loadings. When compared to average-achieving matches, the children with mental retardation scored lower on all CHC factor clusters, but the groups displayed different patterns of performance. Despite normative deficiencies in IQs, children with mental retardation demonstrated a wide range of performance across measures. Implications for assessment and diagnosis are discussed.

This study examined the convergent relations between scores from four clinical clusters from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ III) and measures of executive functions using a sample of school-aged children and a sample of adults. The WJ III clinical clusters included the Working Memory, Cognitive Fluency, Broad Attention, and Executive Processes clusters, and the measures of executive functions were from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS). Across both samples, all clinical clusters demonstrated evidence of statistically significant and moderate positive relations with at least some measures of executive functions. The Executive Processes cluster demonstrated relations with measures of executive functions that tended to be the strongest and most consistent of the WJ III clinical clusters. When these relations between the clinical clusters and the measures of executive functions were contrasted with the relations between the WJ III Comprehension-Knowledge cluster and the same measures of executive functions, results called into question the distinction between process and content but suggested that there is a common ability or common abilities underlying performance across all of the WJ III and D-KEFS measures.