A six-year longitudinal study of the differential effects of abuse and neglect on executive functioning and emotion regulation

Child maltreatment impacts approximately one in seven children in the United States, leading to many adverse outcomes throughout life. Adolescence is a time period that is critical for the development of self-regulation, as it is when the prefrontal cortex is actively developing. Existing research demonstrates the numerous adverse effects maltreatment may have on self-regulation, which encompasses executive function and emotion regulation abilities. However, there is little research examining how abuse and neglect may differently affect the developmental trajectories of executive function and emotion regulation throughout adolescence and into young adulthood. In the current study, 167 adolescents participated approximately annually at six time points, from ages 14 to 20. At each of the six time points, adolescents completed three executive function tasks as well as self-report questionnaires on their emotion regulation abilities and strategies. Information on maltreatment experienced from ages 1 to 13 was collected when the adolescents were approximately 18 to 20 years of age. Conditional growth curve models were utilized to test the differential effects of abuse and neglect on the growth trajectories of executive function abilities and emotion regulation difficulties and strategy use. The results revealed that neglect was associated with developmental changes in working memory abilities, such that greater amounts of neglect were associated with slower increases in working memory abilities across ages 14 to 20. Further, abuse was associated with developmental changes in difficulties in emotion regulation abilities, such that greater amounts of abuse were associated with larger increases in difficulties in emotion regulation abilities from ages 14 to 20. Finally, neglect was associated with the initial level (at age 14) of difficulties in emotion regulation abilities, such that greater levels of neglect were associated with higher initial levels of difficulties in emotion regulation abilities as compared to individuals with lesser amounts of experienced neglect. These findings suggest that working memory development during adolescence into young adulthood may be more vulnerable to childhood neglect and that both abuse and neglect in childhood may have adverse impacts on the development of emotion regulation abilities.