Investigating concurrent and longitudinal transdiagnostic correlates of executive functioning in adolescents: A...

Adolescence is a developmental period where executive functions differentiate and mature. Prior research suggests that transdiagnostic processes - i.e. mechanisms that serve as risk or maintaining factors of psychopathology - negatively impact adolescent executive functioning both concurrently and over time. Understanding how these processes and executive functioning are assessed and interrelated can help neuropsychologists make more accurate diagnostic and treatment recommendations. This study aimed to identify concurrent and longitudinal correlates between adolescent executive functioning and transdiagnostic processes, including emotion regulation, affect, and Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) spectra (i.e. higher-order symptom domains like internalizing, externalizing, and somatic symptoms), using a multi-informant, multi-method design.

We assessed 100 adolescents using behavioral, self- and parent-reported measures of these transdiagnostic processes and executive functioning across two time points. Effect sizes of unadjusted, bivariate correlations were examined.

Performance-based executive functioning did not correlate with self- or informant-reported executive functioning. Cross-informant agreement, however, was often evident for executive function tasks at small effects. While patterns of correlations generally differed across the assessment approaches and informants, negative affect and externalizing symptoms consistently showed small associations with concurrent executive functioning.

Affective demands (e.g. emotion regulation difficulties, internalizing symptoms, negative affect) were negatively associated with concurrent executive functioning, suggesting that such burdens may compromise adolescents' performance on executive tasks. Clinicians are encouraged to evaluate internalizing symptoms contemporaneously with executive function testing, and to attend carefully to adolescent - informant relationships and disclosure dynamics. Implications for multi-method, multi-informant approaches to adolescent assessment are discussed.