Differentiating Preschool Children with Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Behaviors through Emotion Regulation and Executive Functioning

ABSTRACT

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are important characteristics for identifying severe patterns of conduct problems (CP). The current study focused on (a) identifying subgroups of young children displaying a combination of CP and CU behaviors and (b) examining the extent to which executive functioning (EF) and emotion regulation (ER) are associated with CU behaviors. Participants included 249 preschoolers (N = 249, 78% boys, M_age = 4.95 years; 81% Latino/Hispanic) referred to treatment because of externalizing behavior problems. CU behaviors and CP were measured via a combination of teacher/parent rating scales. A multimethod approach was used to measure EF and ER including parent/teacher rating scales, neuropsychological, and observational tasks. Poorer ER as rated by parents/teachers and observed was associated with greater levels of CU behaviors. Latent profile analyses identified three subgroups of children displaying (a) low CU/low CP, (b) moderate CU/moderate CP, and (c) high CU/high CP. Children in the high CU/high-CP group were rated as having significantly poorer rated ER compared to all other groups and poorer observed ER compared to the low-CU/low-CP group. Exploratory analyses found that children in the high-CU/high-CP group displayed marginally lower levels of rated ER but significantly better EF performance on standardized neuropsychological tasks compared to children in a low-CU/high-CP group.Children with higher levels of reported CU behaviors and CP display poorer ER yet may display relatively better EF performance compared to children with lower levels of CU behaviors and CP.

Acknowledgments

The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the National Institute of Health, the Institute of Education Sciences, or the U.S. Department of Education. We also acknowledge the support of Miami-Dade County Public Schools and thank the families and dedicated staff who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported here was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (R56 MH108616) and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R324A120136 to the first author.