Exploring the impact of childhood adversity on adolescent executive function: The role of pubertal timing

At the population level, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are known to have a detrimental influence on health and well-being in later life. Research is key to guiding prevention and intervention initiatives by elucidating how childhood adversity experiences impact development. With this objective in mind, our investigation focuses on aspects of adolescent development that are sensitive to ACE exposure and implicated in adult psychopathology: namely, pubertal timing and cognitive self-regulation (i.e., executive functions: EF).

Mediation models were tested using data from a large-scale, nationally representative sample of American youth (Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study; N = 11,878, 52% male, 52.4% White, 13.4% Black, 24.0% Hispanic). Concurrent models assessed the integrity of adolescents' core EF abilities via performance on tasks of response inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility (baseline assessment; 9-10 years), whereas prospective models examined adolescents' day-to-day EF via parent ratings of their behavior (follow-up assessment; 12-13 years).

For females, but not males, earlier pubertal timing mediated pathways between greater ACE exposure and worse EF, as reflected in lower task performance (baseline) and greater behavioral challenges (follow up).

These findings suggest there may be sex-specific pathways through which early adversity experiences impact development, with puberty emerging as a particularly important consideration for females vis-à-vis adolescent refinements in their capacity for cognitive self-regulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).