Appl Neuropsychol Adult. 2026 Jul 15:1-7. doi: 10.1080/23279095.2026.2702492. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
The present research aimed to validate and standardize classic tasks in neuropsychology for the evaluation of executive functions in young adults from Saudi Arabia: Arabic Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) FAS, Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT) and Trail Making Test Part B (TMT-B). The sample mirrored the demographics of target population (e.g., age, gender, and socioeconomic status) to prevent bias. The population is divided into specific subgroups (strata), and participants were drawn proportionally from each group. Accordingly, 512 healthy young adults were evaluated. The study population ranged in age from 18 to 22 years (20 ± 2.8 years), of which 60% were men. The conditions of sampling adequacy (KMO = .85) and sphericity (p < .001) were satisfactorily met, as the model explains 59.4% of the total variance. For all tests direct and statistically significant correlations (p < .05) were found between measurements taken at different times by the same evaluator. This study analyzes the psychometric properties of the executive function instruments. As the results indicates, all tasks showed adequate internal consistency and inter- and intra-rater reliability, except for the COWAT-FAS, which lacked reliability.
PMID:42455622 | DOI:10.1080/23279095.2026.2702492
