Executive and Social Functioning Across Development in Children and Adolescents With Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

Area of Science:

• Neurodevelopmental disorders
• Child psychology
• Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

Background:

• Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is associated with neurodevelopmental challenges.
• Deficits in social functioning (SF) and executive functioning (EF) are common consequences of PAE.
• These deficits manifest differently across developmental stages, from early childhood to adolescence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate social functioning (SF) and executive functioning (EF) deficits in children and adolescents with PAE.
• To examine the relationship between SF and EF across different developmental periods.
• To address the gap in research concerning early childhood SF and EF in PAE.

Main Methods:

• Post hoc analyses were conducted on data from preschool-aged children (2.5-5.0 years) and adolescents (8-16 years).
• Participants included children with PAE and a control group of adolescents.
• Measures included executive functioning (EF) tasks and parent-reported social and communication inventories; some participants had 4-year follow-up data.

Main Results:

• Children and adolescents with PAE exhibited deficits in both SF and EF.
• A significant relationship between SF and EF was observed in adolescents with PAE, which was not present in controls or the early childhood PAE group.
• This SF-EF relationship emerged in the early childhood PAE group by the 4-year follow-up.

Conclusions:

• Findings confirm SF and EF deficits in adolescents with PAE and extend this to early childhood.
• The relationship between SF and EF deficits appears to strengthen during development.
• Interventions for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) could benefit from targeting EF training to improve social skills.