Associations between middle childhood executive control aspects and adolescent substance use and externalizing and internalizing problems.

ABSTRACT: This study examines the degree to which two middle childhood executive control aspects, working memory and combined inhibitory control/flexible shifting, predict adolescent substance use and externalizing and internalizing problems. Participants were 301 children (ages 3-6 years; 48.2% male) recruited from a Midwestern city in the United States and followed into adolescence (ages 14-18 years). Working memory had a statistically significant unadjusted association with externalizing problems (r = -.30, p = .003) in a confirmatory factor analysis. Neither factor significantly predicted any of the adolescent outcomes in a structural equation model that adjusted for each EC aspect, sociodemographic covariates, and middle childhood externalizing and internalizing problems. Stronger prediction of

SUBMITTER: Mason WA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11349481 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature