The Assessment of Deficits in Executive Function with the Cologne Executive Assessment

The Assessment of Deficits in Executive Function with the Cologne Executive Assessment Abstract: Executive dysfunctions are common following traumatic brain injury, stroke, or neurodegenerative diseases. The associated behavioral changes or deficits in emotion recognition are usually not addressed in neuropsychological diagnostics. Hence, we developed the Cologne Executive Assessment (KEX), which represents an extension of existing instruments and is based on recent research concerning executive functions. The KEX's subtests - Pair Association Learning-5, Animal-Word Interference Test, Emotion Recognition Test, Informant-based Frontal Assessment Questionnaire - were examined in clinical and healthy samples with 1,232 participants from the Cologne University Hospital (Clinic and Polyclinic for Neurology) between 2014 and 2020. This work introduces the subtests and presents results from the normation studies. The KEX proves to be an economical and easy-to-use instrument for assisting an orienting assessment of executive dysfunctions.