Menu Task
What It Measures
The Menu Task is a ten-minute screen for functional cognition — whether a person can still handle the kind of everyday thinking that independent living requires. It uses a task most people find familiar and unthreatening: ordering from a menu.
The person is given a two-sided sample menu and a written list of rules about what to select for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Alongside the selection rules sit behavioral ones, such as not speaking to the examiner during the task. Twelve points are available: seven for following the meal and beverage rules, five for the initiation and inhibition rules. Higher scores are better. The task is timed, but time does not affect scoring.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Materials are available free from the developers' research page.
Learn More: 8 or below categorized as impaired in the published validation study.
