Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MA in Psychology

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Melissa K Peckins

Second Advisor

Elissa J Brown

Abstract

Adversity exposure in childhood is associated with greater risk for developing internalizing and externalizing problems throughout childhood and adolescence (Henry et al., 2021). Adversity exposure may confer risk by impacting executive function, including reduced cognitive flexibility, due to the neurobiological consequences of increased stress hormone exposure (Kavanaugh et al., 2017). Previous research has linked adversity exposure to reduced cognitive flexibility in youth (Kavanaugh et al., 2017). Lower cognitive flexibility is also associated with internalizing and externalizing problems including depression, anxiety, and disruptive mood dysregulation disorder in youth and adults (Patwardhan et al., 2021; Stange et al., 2017; Braenden et al., 2023). Although cognitive flexibility mediated the pathway from childhood adversity exposure to depression in college students (Huang et al., 2022), to date, no research has investigated this pathway with internalizing and externalizing problems during late childhood. Investigating this pathway in late childhood is important because of the developmental trajectory of cognitive flexibility and emergence of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The present study addresses gaps in the literature by testing whether cognitive flexibility mediates the association between adversity exposure and internalizing and externalizing problems in 9-11-year-old youth. Analyses were conducted with data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study (ABCD), a longitudinal dataset of youth (study wave 1: 9-11 years old, study wave 2: 10-12 years old), sampled across the United States (n = 11,868). Adversity exposure was calculated as the sum of 31 items from youth and parent reported measures of abuse and neglect, domestic violence, household mental illness and substance use, and economic hardship. Cognitive flexibility was measured by the NIH toolbox Dimensional Card sort Task. Parent reported externalizing symptoms were measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991). Youth reported internalizing symptoms were measured by The Brief Problem Monitoring Survey (Achenbach et al., 2011). As expected, greater adversity exposure was associated with lower cognitive flexibility, and higher internalizing and externalizing symptoms 1 year later. Cognitive flexibility mediated the association between adverse events and youth self-reported internalizing symptoms and parent reported externalizing symptoms.

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