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Linking Executive Function and Peer Problems from Early Childhood Through Middle Adolescence

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Abstract

Peer interactions and executive function play central roles in the development of healthy children, as peer problems have been indicative of lower cognitive competencies such as self-regulatory behavior and poor executive function has been indicative of problem behaviors and social dysfunction. However, few studies have focused on the relation between peer interactions and executive function and the underlying mechanisms that may create this link. Using a national sample (n = 1164, 48.6 % female) from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), we analyzed executive function and peer problems (including victimization and rejection) across three waves within each domain (executive function or peer problems), beginning in early childhood and ending in middle adolescence. Executive function was measured as a multi-method, multi-informant composite including reports from parents on the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire and Child Behavior Checklist and child’s performance on behavioral tasks including the Continuous Performance Task, Woodcock-Johnson, Tower of Hanoi, Operation Span Task, Stroop, and Tower of London. Peer problems were measured as a multi-informant composite including self, teacher, and afterschool caregiver reports on multiple peer-relationship scales. Using a cross-lagged design, our Structural Equation Modeling findings suggested that experiencing peer problems contributed to lower executive function later in childhood and better executive function reduced the likelihood of experiencing peer problems later in childhood and middle adolescence, although these relations weakened as a child moves into adolescence. The results highlight that peer relationships are involved in the development of strengths and deficits in executive function and vice versa.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the study participants and research staff. This work was supported by a grant awarded to Dr. Jungmeen Kim-Spoon from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (DA036017). The Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development was conducted by the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, and was supported by NICHD through a cooperative agreement that calls for scientific collaboration between the grantees and the NICHD staff. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development or the National Institute of Health.

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  1. Department of Psychology (MC 0436), Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    Christopher J. Holmes, Jungmeen Kim-Spoon & Kirby Deater-Deckard

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  1. Christopher J. Holmes
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Correspondence to Christopher J. Holmes.

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Holmes, C.J., Kim-Spoon, J. & Deater-Deckard, K. Linking Executive Function and Peer Problems from Early Childhood Through Middle Adolescence. J Abnorm Child Psychol 44, 31–42 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-0044-5

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