Creativity lost - The importance of testing higher-level executive functions in school-age children and adolescents

In school settings, students are typically evaluated using group achievement tests, IQ scales, and college entrance exams that focus more on rote-verbal skills (e.g., vocabulary, mathematical facts) than on higher level executive functions (e.g., abstract thinking, problem solving). However, recent neuropsychological findings suggest that rote-knowledge skills and executive functions are divergent cognitive domains that can be dissociated in both adults with frontal lesions and children with neurodevelopmental disorders. New correlational findings obtained from 470 children and adolescents provide additional support for the divergent nature of these cognitive domains and the existence of subgroups of students who exhibit either strengths in abstract, creative thinking with relative weaknesses in rote-verbal skills or vice versa. The results suggest that current school assessment practices may result in academic roadblocks for those students who have strengths in abstract, creative thinking but whose relative weaknesses in rote-verbal skills may hinder their ability to take college entrance exams.