Objective: The NIH Toolbox offers brief, computerized measures of cognitive and psychosocial functioning. However, its psychometric properties were established among typically developing children and adolescents. The current study provides the first comprehensive assessment of its psychometric properties among young patients with congenital heart defects (CHD). Study Design: We prospectively recruited 58 patients with CHD and 80 healthy controls between the ages of 6 and 17. Participants completed the NIH Toolbox Cognition and Emotion Batteries, a battery of clinician-administered neuropsychological tests, and ratings of their quality of life. Their parents also completed ratings of their functioning. Results: On the Cognition Battery, we found expectable group differences and developmentally expected gains across ages. For the most part, composites and subtests were significantly correlated with neuropsychological measures of similar constructs. Higher scores were generally associated with ratings of better day-to-day functioning among children with CHD. On the Emotion Battery, we found no significant group differences, echoing prior research. For the most part, scales showed acceptable internal consistency among both groups. There was adequate construct coherence for most of questionnaires among healthy control but not participants with CHD. Correlations with a comparison tool were largely within expectable directions. Conclusion: The NIH Toolbox may provide a valid and useful assessment of cognitive functioning among children and adolescents with CHD. While it may offer reliable and valid scales of psychosocial functioning, further research is needed to understand the meaningfulness of the scales for participants with CHD.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This work was supported by the Department of Defense (W81XWH-16-1-0613), the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (R01 HL152740-1 and R01 HL128818-05), the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute with National Institute of Aging (R01 HL128818-05 S1), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (K23 063371), the National Library of Medicine (5T15LM007059-27), the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Mario Lemieux Foundation, and the Twenty Five Club Fund of Magee Women's Hospital.

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