A-152: Executive Functioning and Child–Parent Discrepancies in Internalizing Symptoms in a Clinical Sample

Abstract

Objective: The present study aims to understand the child–parent discrepancies in ratings of internalizing symptoms in a clinically referred pediatric sample and investigated whether executive functioning abilities were associated with the degree of informant disagreement. It was hypothesized that children with greater executive functioning difficulties, particularly in inhibition and cognitive switching, would show larger discrepancies between self- and parent-reported internalizing symptoms. Method/Data Selection: This study used children and adolescents (N=128; range = 8-18 years) who were referred for outpatient neuropsychological evaluation. Internalizing symptoms were assessed using child and parent report forms of the BASC-3. Executive functioning was measured using inhibition and cognitive switching tasks used from the NEPSY-II and the Delis–Kaplan Executive Function System. Child–parent discrepancy scores for internalizing symptoms were calculated using both directional difference scores (child minus parent) and absolute difference scores to quantify the degree of informant disagreement. Results/Data Synthesis: Minimal average directional differences between child and parent ratings of internalizing symptoms was observed(M = −2.07, SD = 12.57); however, individual disagreement between the two showed a more significant divergence (average absolute discrepancy = 12.80 T-scores, SD = 9.11), with greater executive functioning difficulties associated with a larger extent of discrepancy, including associations with NEPSY-II Inhibition/Switching (r = .25) and D-KEFS switching performance (r = .16). Conclusions: Variability in child–parent agreement on internalizing symptoms was modestly associated with executive functioning.