Deconstructing Planning Ability in Children and Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa

Abstract

Weaknesses in planning by patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) have been noted (e.g., Zakzanis, Campbell, & Polsinelli, 2010 ) and are generally based on adults. This study explored D-KEFS Tower Test performance to better understand learning styles and strategies used by child and adolescent patients with AN compared to healthy controls. Overall, no significant differences were found in achievement; however, Item 5 predicted performance across harder items. The AN group was significantly faster to move their first disc suggesting patients with AN did not spend as much time planning their strategies for item completion. The findings of this study in conjunction with other studies investigating planning in AN may suggest the existence of subtle differences in learning style and strategy, such as faster initiation times, rather than gross planning differences. Further research is required to better understand the relationship between these subtle differences and clinical presentations.

Cross-sectional study of cognitive function in women with a history of eating disorders in the UK Biobank cohort

“…Previous studies have covered the executive function domain extensively, yet studies focused specifically on reasoning skills were not found. Nevertheless, two studies (Rose et al, 2017;Spitoni et al, 2018), which used the Tower tests to assess problem-solving abilities, reached similar conclusions, and observed that the performance of the ED samples in this domain lay within the normal range.…”