Executive Function in Children with Attention/Hyperactivity and Internalizing Symptoms
by Emily D. Barnes
Faculty Mentor: Jessica Church-Lang
Executive functions (EFs) are cognitive processes that coordinate and control other processes essential to learning and daily functioning. EFs are clustered into four main factors of inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, working memory, and updating. Childhood EFs predict school readiness, academic achievement, adolescent social skills, physical health, and adult socioeconomic status. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with impairment in EFs, particularly inhibitory control and working memory. Diagnoses of anxiety and depression are associated with deficits in cognitive flexibility and working memory. Anxiety and depression symptoms frequently co-occur with ADHD symptoms, but research is inconclusive about how the symptoms interact to affect EFs. Mixed results in past studies could be due to reliance on grouping children by diagnoses rather than using continuous measures of the severity of symptoms. This study will examine the relationships between EF processes and attention, hyperactivity, and internalizing symptoms in children and adolescents using continuous measures of symptoms and EF abilities.