The assessment of effortful control in childhood: Questionnaires and the Test of Everyday Attention for Children compared

A community sample ages 8–17 years completed questionnaire measures of effortful control (EC), the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) and measures of psychopathology. EC questionnaires showed sufficient construct validity and were significantly associated with TEA-Ch performance, the latter albeit only in younger children and for parent-reports of EC. EC questionnaires were stronger and more consistent predictors of psychopathology than TEA-Ch performance, especially for externalizing problems. EC questionnaires seemed to be more appropriate for use in broader age ranges than the TEA-Ch, due to the ceiling effects in the latter among older children and adolescents. Future studies should examine the concurrent validity of EC questionnaires using other performance-based tasks which differentiate well in older age groups.