Global deficits in executive functioning are transdiagnostic mediators between severe childhood neglect and...

Children reared in institutions experience profound deprivation that is associated with both heightened levels of psychopathology and deficits in executive functioning (EF). It is unclear whether deficits in EF among institutionally-reared children serve as a vulnerability factor that increases risk for later psychopathology. It is also unclear whether this putative association between EF and psychopathology is transdiagnostic (i.e. cuts across domains of psychopathology), or specific to a given syndrome. Thus, we examined whether global deficits in EF mediate the association between severe childhood neglect and general v. specific psychopathology in adolescence.

The sample consisted of 188 children from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a longitudinal study examining the brain and behavioral development of children reared in Romanian institutions and a comparison group of never-institutionalized children. EF was assessed at age 8, 12, and 16 using a well-validated measure of neuropsychological functioning. Psychopathology was measured as general (P) and specific internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) factors at age 12 and 16.

Institutionally-reared children had lower global EF and higher general psychopathology (P) at all ages compared to never-institutionalized children. Longitudinal path analysis revealed that the effect of institutionalization on P at age 16 operated indirectly through poorer EF from ages 8 to 12. No indirect effects involving EF were observed for INT or EXT at age 16.

We conclude that stable, global deficits in EF serve as a cognitive endophenotype that increases transdiagnostic vulnerability to psychopathology in adolescence among those who have experienced profound early neglect.