Relating Worry and Executive Functioning During Childhood: The Moderating Role of Age

Abstract

The associations between worry and executive functioning across development have not been previously explored. Examining the interrelationships between these variables in childhood may further elucidate the cognitive nature of worry as well as its developmental course. Hypotheses predicted that difficulties with executive functioning would correlate with child worry; based on extant literature, age-related hypotheses were proposed for particular aspects of executive functioning. Children (N = 130) participated in the present study. Difficulties with executive functioning and child worry were assessed. Results demonstrated that each executive functioning subscale correlated with worry. The relations between worry and several facets of executive functioning were no longer significant at older ages, while the relations between worry and the facets of inhibition, shifting, and emotional control did not demonstrate age-related interaction effects. Overall, the findings suggest that worry is associated with executive functioning at young ages and that this association takes distinct forms during different childhood stages.

Subjective Executive Function Weaknesses Are Linked to Elevated Internalizing Symptoms Among Community Adolescents

“…The current findings extend the literature by indicating that the BRIEF is sensitive to internalizing problems such as anxiety and depression afflicting adolescents in the community. This is consistent with recent work, including previously mentioned studies documenting associations between BRIEF scores and self-reported worry severity (Geronimi et al, 2016), and anxiety (Affrunti & Woodruff-Borden, 2015) among children, and depressive symptoms among adolescents (Wante et al, 2017). The implications of these findings are significant, suggesting that elevations in scores on the BRIEF should alert clinicians to thoroughly screen for internalizing—in addition to externalizing—symptoms in their patients.…”

“…It focuses on a large, diverse community sample of adolescents. While previous studies of the BRIEF often included only parent-report (Affrunti & Woodruff-Borden, 2015; Geronimi et al, 2016) or parent-report and teacher-report (Toplak et al, 2009), this study included both parent-report and adolescent-report on the BRIEF and on all outcome measures. Another strength of this study is that we controlled for IQ in all analyses, minimizing an important potential confound.…”

A Cognitive Model of Pathological Worry in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

“…Four studies examined the relationship between worry and working memory in youth (see Table 2). As mentioned above, one study showed that poor working memory was associated with high worry in children (7-12-year-olds), as measured with the BRIEF questionnaire (Geronimi et al 2016). However, age moderated this relationship with the effect strongest in younger children (i.e.…”

“…The BRIEF, composed of eight subscales, captures different aspects of executive functions such as inhibition, shifting, emotion control, initiating, working memory, planning, organisation, and monitoring. One study showed that deficits on all eight dimensions of the BRIEF were associated with high worry in 7-12-year-old children (Geronimi et al 2016). Furthermore, age moderated this relationship for the executive domains of planning, working memory, and monitoring, whilst shifting, inhibition, and emotion control had a more stable association with worry across ages.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, no studies have examined how executive functions or attention, interpretation, and memory biases develop throughout childhood and adolescence in relation to outcomes of worry. One correlational study has shown that age moderates the relationship between worry and executive functions in children (Geronimi et al 2016), whilst recent reviews indicate that the association between negative interpretation biases and anxious youth increases with age (Stuijfzand et al 2017) and negative attention biases in anxious children varies across childhood (Dudney et al 2015). Future longitudinal studies investigating how cognitive biases and executive functions evolve over time would provide a deeper understanding of the developmental factors that impact the nature of worry in children and adolescents.…”