OBJECTIVES: Cognitive difficulties are common among children with neurological diseases. A brief-yet-precise screening tool is needed to facilitate timely referral for neuropsychological testing in this population. Based on our prior research with clinicians, a standardized, self-report measure would be efficient and useful for this purpose. This paper reports the development and psychometric properties of a pediatric perceived cognitive function item bank (pedsPCF). METHODS: The pedsPCF consists of 45 items, developed via children/parent/clinician/teacher interview and literature review, and were qualitatively evaluated by children/parents and clinicians. The calibration sample includes data from 1,497 children: 49% aged 7-12; 45% 13-17; 6% 18-21. Of them, 56% were males, 16% repeated grades in school, 39% received some forms of special education, 30% were given medication for attention difficulties, and 27% had at least one of the following diagnoses: epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy or brain tumor. Data were randomly divided into two datasets to be used for exploratory factor analysis (EFA, n=747) and confirmatory factor analysis, specifically, bi-factor analysis (n=750). The clinical usefulness of the pedsPCF was evaluated by determining whether scores could discriminate between different sub-groups. RESULTS: One item was deleted due to its low Spearman rho and item-scale correlation. Results from the EFA suggested a single factor among the remaining 44 items based on a scree plot. Furthermore, all items had significant loadings (>0.3) on the first factor after PROMAX rotation.  Bi-factor analysis supported sufficient unidimensionality with satisfactory fit indices (CFI=0.923; TLI=0.992; RMSEA=0.112) and all items had significantly higher loadings onto the general factor versus local factors. T-tests showed that the pedsPCF significantly differentiated samples defined by medication use, repeated grades, special education status, and neurological diagnosis, all p<0.0001. CONCLUSIONS:  The initial psychometric properties of pedsPCF are promising. Recruitment for the clinical validation study is in progress.