Examining the Pattern of Executive Functioning in Children Identified As Emotionally Disturbed

Abstract

Students who are diagnosed with an emotional disturbance experience the greatest levels of school failure and poor social outcomes after leaving school than any other disability group. Current diagnostic practices are subjective and often do not address the underlying cognitive processes associated with the disability. Because executive function skills are innately tied to the display of externalizing and internalizing behavior, an investigation into the pattern of executive function in children identified as emotionally disturbed may begin to determine the root of the problem and, in turn, properly address the needs of these students. Forty students diagnosed with an emotional disturbance along with a comparison group of 40 non-disabled students from inner-city public schools were selected for this quantitative investigation of teachers' reports of the executive function skills of these students with the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF; Baron, 2000). T-test, MANOVA, ANOVA, and Mann-Whitney U test analyses comparing the students with an emotional disturbance to the comparison group of non-disabled students as well as to the normative sample of students used to standardize the BRIEF, revealed that students with an emotional disturbance do exhibit elevated levels of executive function skill deficits and get progressively worse as they get older. The non-disabled students, while not to the same extent, also exhibited elevated levels of executive function deficits. In addition, female students identified as having an emotional disturbance exhibited much more severe deficits in executive function skills than male students. Recommendations with regard to intervention as well as directions for future research in the area of assessment of executive function skill deficits in students with an emotional disturbance from more diverse backgrounds are also suggested.

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