The importance of executive functioning for social skills in college students: a relative weights analysis.

STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Social interaction is one of the most important things that humans do on a day-to-day basis, impacting both mental and physical wellness. College is a particularly important period where social interaction becomes increasingly important as well as complex. While there is no currently agreed upon cognitive basis of social interaction, the executive function (EF) system is believed to play a central role. The current study provides further evidence of the role of the EF system across different social skills in addition to highlighting the complexity of these relationships.

Increased Working Memory Load in a Dual-Task Design Impairs Nonverbal Social Encoding in Children with High and Low Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms.

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are known to have difficulty with peer relations, though the mechanisms by which these children struggle with interpersonal relationships are not well known. The current study examined the relation between working memory (WM) and the encoding of nonverbal social cues using a dual-task paradigm tested in children with High and Low ADHD symptoms. A total of 40 children were recruited (20 High ADHD; 20 Low ADHD) and completed computerized tasks of social encoding and WM in both single- and dual-task conditions. A series of repeated measures mixed-model ANOVAs revealed that both children with High ADHD and Low ADHD performed significantly worse during the dual-task condition compared to the single task conditions. Also, children with High ADHD had significantly lower performance than Low ADHD children on task-based social encoding and WM. This study supports the role of WM in nonverbal social encoding in children.

Sleep, Internalizing Problems, and Social Withdrawal: Unique Associations in Clinic-Referred Youth With Elevated Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Symptoms.

Objective: We compared clinic-referred youth with ADHD + sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT; n = 34), ADHD Only (n = 108), and SCT Only (n = 22) on demographics, co-occurring symptomatology, comorbid diagnoses, and social functioning. Method: In total, 164 youth (age = 6-17 years, M = 9.97) and their parent(s) presented to an outpatient clinic for a psychoeducational assessment. Between-group analyses and regressions were used to examine study variables. Results: SCT groups were older and exhibited more parent-reported internalizing problems, externalizing problems, sleep problems, and social withdrawal on the Child Behavior Checklist. No significant differences emerged between groups on the Teacher Report Form. Regression analyses involving multiple covariates revealed that SCT symptoms were uniquely related to social withdrawal but not general social problems. Conclusion: Based on parent report, SCT symptoms have a unique relationship with internalizing problems, sleep problems, and social withdrawal. Future research should explore correlates of SCT in youth using multiple informants.

An EEG Study of Children With and Without ADHD Symptoms: Between-Group Differences and Associations With Sluggish Cognitive Tempo Symptoms.

Objective: We examined differences between those with and without ADHD symptoms on resting state electroencephalography (EEG) indices and unique relations with sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) symptoms. Method: Children with ADHD symptoms (n = 21) and healthy controls (n = 20) were assessed using rating scales, a neuropsychological task measuring sustained attention and inhibitory control, and EEG activity during a resting state period. Between-group, correlational, and regression analyses were conducted. Results: Large differences (particularly for theta/beta ratio in frontal and frontocentral regions) were found on EEG measures between those with and without ADHD symptoms. While ADHD and SCT symptoms both related to sustained attention on a computerized task, only ADHD symptoms were related to frontal and frontocentral theta/beta ratio. Conclusion: Results support the conclusion that ADHD symptoms are strongly associated with theta/beta ratio in frontal and frontocentral regions. Future studies should explore unique neurophysiological correlates of SCT.

Considering equifinality in treatment planning for social impairment: Divergent paths in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present with deficits in both social cognition and executive functioning (EF), which contribute to social impairment. Autistic youth are also frequently diagnosed with comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a disorder that, like ASD, includes impaired EF and social functioning. The comorbidity of ASD and ADHD may result in compounded social impairment, but prior research has not sufficiently evaluated the extent to which this comorbidity profile responds to evidence-based intervention targeting social deficits. It is conceivable that dually targeting EF and social cognition impairment will be more impactful than direct social skills training alone. The authors present an integrative model for intervention programming that examines pathways to social impairment in order to more effectively improve social skills and thereby impact both proximal (e.g., emotion expression, current peer relationships) and more distal outcomes (e.g., depression, self-esteem) in youth with ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Social Functioning in Youth with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo.

The current review summarizes the research to date on social functioning for youth with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with a focus on three key domains: peer rejection, friendship, and social information processing. The review extends past reviews by examining the research to date on how the presence of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) symptoms, a common correlate of ADHD, affects the social presentation of youth with ADHD. Overall, youth with ADHD show significant difficulty with peer rejection, forming and maintaining friendships, and abnormalities in how they process and respond to social information. Further, the presence of SCT symptoms results in great social withdrawal and isolation. Future studies are needed to better understand the social difficulties of youth with ADHD, particularly using experimental approaches that can manipulate and isolate mechanisms within the social information processing model. In addition, novel intervention approaches are needed to more effectively ameliorate the social difficulties of youth with ADHD and those with co-occurring SCT symptoms.

Evidence-Based Assessment of ADHD in Youth Using a Receiver Operating Characteristic Approach.

Guidelines exist for the assessment of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but they are often unclear as to how a clinician should consider multiple informants, methods, and co-occurring symptoms to reach an overall diagnostic probability for an individual patient. The current study used receiver operating characteristic analyses and evidence-based medicine methods to evaluate the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment measures and the Conners' Continuous Performance Test for ADHD diagnosis in youth. Children (n = 379) and their parent(s) presented at an outpatient clinic for a psychoeducational assessment. Analyses examined the diagnostic efficiency and utility of study measures for predicting a best-estimate ADHD diagnosis. The Child Behavior Checklist Attention Problems construct, Teacher Report Form Attention Problems construct, and Hit Reaction Time Standard Error showed adequate diagnostic efficiency and unique contributions to the prediction of ADHD, Combined Type diagnosis. None of these measures showed good diagnostic efficiency or utility for the prediction of ADHD, Predominantly Inattentive Type. Child anxiety did not moderate the relations between predictors and ADHD diagnosis. Both the Child Behavior Checklist and Teacher Report Form Attention Problems constructs can discriminate youth with ADHD, Combined Type from other clinic-referred youth. Although Hit Reaction Time Standard Error also showed diagnostic utility, the decision to include a computerized measure should consider time and expense and be utilized in cases where diagnostic probability is unclear. Finally, anxiety may be associated with elevated attention problems, but it does not appear that anxiety affects diagnostic cutoffs for ADHD.

Attention Problems as a Mediator of the Relation between Executive Function and Social Problems in a Child and Adolescent Outpatient Sample.

Social functioning is critical for the successful navigation of everyday life for children, adolescents, and adults. Recent theories have postulated a neuropsychological basis for social functioning with particularly strong links with the executive functioning (EF) system. The current study examined attention problems as a mediator between EF (e.g., working memory, planning, and response inhibition) and social functioning in a child and adolescent outpatient sample. Participants were 218 children ages 6-16 (M = 10.23; SD = 2.52; 68.8 % males) who were referred to an outpatient clinic for psychoeducational assessment. Bias-corrected bootstrapping mediation analyses were used to examine the hypothesized models. The effects of working memory and planning (but not response inhibition) on social problems were mediated by attention problems in both teacher- and mother-reported models. These findings also held up in cross-source models (e.g., mother-reported attention problems as a mediator in a model predicting teacher-reported social problems). These findings have implications for dimensional models of social functioning and conceptual models for specific clinical populations (e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder).