Behavior Rating Scale of Executive Function (BRIEF)

BRIEF — Pre-school version

(Gioia, Espy, & Isquith, 2003)

(Age 2 - 5.11 years)

BRIEF-P consists of a single rating form that is used by parents, teachers, and daycare providers to rate a child's executive functions within the context of their everyday environments. It comprises 63 items that measure various aspects of executive functioning: inhibit; shift; emotional control; working memory; and plan/organise. The clinical scales form three broad indexes (inhibitory self-control, flexibility, and emergent metacognition) and one composite score, as well as two validity scales (inconsistency and negativity).

BRIEF

(Gioia, Isquith, & Guy Kenworthy, 2000)

(Age 5 - 18 years)

BRIEF consists of two rating forms—a parent questionnaire and a teacher questionnaire—designed to assess executive functioning in the home and school environments.

Each questionnaire consists of 86 items in eight nonoverlapping clinical scales and two validity scales, which together form two broader indexes: behavioural regulation index (inhibit, shift, and emotional control) and metacognition index (initiate, working memory, plan/organise, organisation of materials, and monitor). BRIEF is useful in evaluating children with conditions such as learning disabilities, low birth weight, ADHD, Tourette's disorder, traumatic brain injury, and pervasive developmental disorders/autism.

BRIEF — Self-report version

(Guy, Isquith, & Gioia, 2004)

(Age 10 - 18 years)

BRIEF-SR is an 80-item self-report behaviour rating scale that captures an adolsecent's view of his/her own ability to guide, direct, and manage cognitive, emotional, and behavioural functions. It yields information on eight nonoverlapping clinical scales:

• Inhibit
• Shift
• Emotional control
• Monitor
• Working memory
• Plan/organise
• Organisation of materials
• Task completion

The clinical scales form two broader indexes—behavioural regulation index and the metacognition index—and yield an overall composite score. There are also two validity scales: inconsistency and negativity.

BRIEF — Adult version

(Guy, Isquith, & Gioia, 2004)

(Age 18 - 90 years)

The BRIEF-A is a standardised measure that captures views of an adult's executive funcitons or self-regulation in his or her everday environment. Two formats are used - a self report and an informant report. The Self-Report Form is designed to be completed by adults 18-90 years of age, including adults with a wide variety of developmental, systemic, neurological, and psychiatric disorders such as attention disorders, learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, depression, mild cognitive impairment, dementias, and schizophrenia. The Informant Report Form is adminstered to an adult informant who is familiar with the rated individual's everyday functioning.

The BRIEF-A, based on the original Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF), is composed of 75 items within nine nonoverlapping theoretically and empirically derived clinical scales that measure various aspects of executive functioning.

• Inhibit
• Self-monitor
• Plan/Organise
• Shift
• Initiate
• Task Monitor
• Emotional Control
• Working Memory
• Organization of Material

BRIEF Software Package

The BRIEF-SP provides unlimited scoring and report generation for the BRIEF® Parent Form, the BRIEF Teacher Form, the BRIEF®-SR, and now the BRIEF®-P. After administration of one or any combination of these four protocols, item responses or scale raw scores are hand-entered into a new or an existing client file. The software scores the protocol(s) and generates the selected report(s): a comprehensive Interpretive Report for the clinician; a Feedback Report that can be used to provide a summary of results to parents, teachers, care providers, and/or the youth himself or herself; and/or a Protocol Summary Report that allows for comparison of up to four different administrations of either the BRIEF, BRIEF-SR, or BRIEF-P.