Executive Functioning Quiz
adapted from Peg Dawson & Richard Guare
This is a great place to start if you're trying to figure out how to manage ADHD! This quiz will help you identify your executive functioning strengths and weaknesses, so you can play to your strengths, and target areas to improve your productivity, attention, and focus.
Look at your final scores to determine your executive skill strengths (2-3 highest scores) and weaknesses (2-3 lowest scores). Scroll down for descriptions of each skill.
This self-assessment quiz is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Your results will not be saved when you exit out of this window, so it's recommended you take a screenshot of your results and share with your therapist.
Descriptions
Response Inhibition
The capacity to think before you act – this ability to resist the urge to say or do something allows us the time to evaluate a situation and how our behaviour might impact it.
Working Memory
The ability to hold information in memory while performing complex tasks. It incorporates the ability to draw on past learning or experience to apply to the situation at hand or to project into the future.
Emotional Control
The ability to manage emotions in order to achieve goals, complete tasks, or control and direct behaviour.
Task Initiation
The ability to begin projects without undue procrastination, in an efficient or timely fashion.
Sustained Attention
The capacity to maintain attention to a situation or task in spite of distractibility, fatigue, or boredom.
Planning & Prioritization
The ability to create a roadmap to reach a goal or to complete a task. It also involves being able to make decisions about what’s important to focus on and what’s not important.
Organization
The ability to create and maintain systems to keep track of information or materials.
Time Management
The capacity to estimate how much time one has, how to allocate it, and how to stay within time limits and deadlines. It also involves a sense that time is important.
Flexibility
The ability to revise plans in the face of obstacles, setbacks, new information or mistakes. It relates to an adaptability to changing conditions.
Understanding How You Think
The ability to stand back and take a birds‐eye view of oneself in a situation. It is an ability to observe how you problem solve. It also includes self‐monitoring and self‐evaluative skills (e.g., asking yourself, “How am I doing? or How did I do?”).
Goal-directed Persistence
The capacity to have a goal, follow through to the completion of the goal, and not be put off by or distracted by competing interests.
Stress Tolerance
The ability to thrive in stressful situations and to cope with uncertainty, change, and performance demands.
