Executive Function Performance Test

The Executive Function Performance Test asks a person to actually do four everyday tasks while a therapist watches: cook oatmeal, use the telephone, manage medication, and pay a bill. Rather than testing thinking in the abstract, it looks at what happens when thinking has to run a real task from start to finish.

Five executive functions are rated during each task: initiation (getting started), organization (gathering and arranging what is needed), sequencing (doing steps in a workable order), safety and judgment, and completion. The score is the level of cueing the person needed — from no cue, through verbal guidance and gestures, up to the therapist doing it for them. Lower scores mean more independence.

• Feasibility of using the EFPT to detect executive function deficits at the acute stage of stroke

Licensing Notes: Available free from the department, with permission from the owner. Contact through the Washington University OT program.

Learn More: The scoring rule is easy to get wrong: the score is the highest level of cue required, not the number of cues given, and the examiner gives two cues at each level before escalating.