Emotion Dysregulation Is Associated With Social Impairment Among Young Adolescents With ADHD

Abstract

ED is associated with ADHD among young adolescents, does not differ based on ADHD subtype or ODD status, and is associated with social impairment.

ADHD and Emotion Dysregulation Among Children and Adolescents

“…We defined ED as an individual's inability to exercise any or all aspects of the modulatory processes involved in regulating positive and negative emotions, to such a degree that the inability results in the individual functioning meaningfully below his or her baseline. Our review of the literature indicates that there is some empirical evidence for the second and third aspects of this definition (e.g., Bunford et al 2014Bunford et al , 2015b but not for yet for the first. Thus, authors of future studies may wish to collect data on whether or not youth with ADHD exhibit ED characterized by a speed of escalation and degree of escalation of emotion expression that results in the youth functioning meaningfully below his or her baseline.…”

“…We thus calculated effect sizes (Cohen's d) for both the data obtained by Maedgen and Carlson and our own data. These range from .44 to 1.1 in the Maedgen and Carlson study and from .02 to .32 in the Bunford et al (2014) study. Thus, although Maedgen and Carlson obtained medium to large effect differences with a sample that was * 1/4th of ours, we obtained small effect differences only.…”

“…We know of only one study wherein data were specifically reported on the prevalence of ED among youth with ADHD. Based on data obtained from 182 young adolescents (ages 12-16 years; 75 % boys) on the DERS and the Emotion Regulation Index for Children and Adolescents (ERICA), Bunford et al (2014) reported that boys with ADHD differed from a community sample of youth on six of nine subscales across these two measures and girls with ADHD differed on five. We compared data obtained by Bunford et al (2014) to percentiles provided 9 Due to the possibility that with small sample sizes there would be power limitations to detecting such small effect sizes in subsample comparisons, we revisited Maedgen and Carlson's data.…”

“…14 Many investigators measure ED among youth with ADHD using rating scales (e.g., Bunford et al 2014Bunford et al , 2015bSeymour et al 2012Seymour et al , 2014. Rating scales are appropriate for sampling a large number of situations (as opposed to a single experimental task) and can thus be representative of the multiple contexts of an individual's day.…”

“…Preliminary evidence indicates that one characteristic that is associated with social impairment among individuals with ADHD is emotion dysregulation (ED) (e.g., Bunford et al 2014Bunford et al , 2015Maedgen and Carlson 2000;Melnick and Hinshaw 2000), and there is indication that ADHD and ED are each associated with risky behaviors, such as substance abuse and risky sex (Cooper et al 1998;Flory et al 2006;Martin et al 2000;Wilens et al 1998;& Nora Bunford nb243610@ohio.edu Winters et al 2009). Further, some findings indicate that behaviors redolent of ED differentiate individuals who respond to treatment from those who do not (Galanter et al 2003;Waxmonsky et al 2008).…”