The TVCF eliminates the shortcomings associated with other measures of executive functioning:
- It is well-standardized, appropriately normed, and objectively scored.
- It measures multiple, rather than limited, aspects of executive functioning.
- It involves both verbal and nonverbal assessment.
These features, along with quick administration and a wide age range (8 to 89 years), make the TVCF highly useful in both clinical and educational settings. It can help you detect brain injury and track rehabilitation progress, assess language functions, determine disability under IDEA, and evaluate academic difficulties in regular classrooms.
Because executive functioning involves planning and purposeful action in response to external demands, the TVCF requires the individual to perform a range of tasks. It is composed of four subtests:
- Categorical Fluency
Ability to retrieve words within a category (e.g., animals, foods) and fluency of ideation
- Classification
A verbal measure of set shifting and rule induction (a language-based analog to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test)
- Letter Naming
Word retrieval by initial sound and fluency of ideation
- Trails C
Sequencing, visual search, ability to coordinate high attentional demands, and ability to shift rapidly between numerals and words representing numbers (a variation of other "trail-making" tasks, renormed with the TVCF subtests above)
These subtests are easy to administer. Several are timed, and most people can complete all four in just 20 to 30 minutes.
For each subtest, the TVCF generates raw scores, normalized T-scores, and percentile ranks. Quotient scores, z-scores, and stanines are also provided for the convenience of researchers and others with specialized assessment needs. Norms are based on a sample of 1,788 individuals, aged 8 to 89, approximating the U.S. population in terms of geographic region, gender, ethnicity, education, and disability.
The TVCF is a quick, cost-effective way to identify people who may have executive functioning deficits. In educational settings, such deficits are associated with academic difficulties due to weak study skills, test-taking problems, and poor time management. Because these problems exist in both regular and special education classrooms, the TVCF is useful for pre-referral evaluation as well as assessment of students with identified learning disabilities or ADHD. In clinical settings, the test offers an efficient way to detect brain injury or evaluate executive functioning in people with CNS disease, drug addiction, aphasia, or dementia. Because it is brief, the TVCF is also ideal for monitoring treatment progress.
