Nonverbal intelligence in young children with dysregulation: the Generation R Study

Abstract

Children meeting the Child Behavior Checklist Dysregulation Profile (CBCL-DP) suffer from high levels of co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems. Little is known about the cognitive abilities of these children with CBCL-DP. We examined the relationship between CBCL-DP and nonverbal intelligence. Parents of 6,131 children from a population-based birth cohort, aged 5 through 7 years, reported problem behavior on the CBCL/1.5-5. The CBCL-DP was derived using latent profile analysis on the CBCL/1.5-5 syndrome scales. Nonverbal intelligence was assessed using the Snijders Oomen Nonverbal Intelligence Test 2.5-7-Revised. We examined the relationship between CBCL-DP and nonverbal intelligence using linear regression. Analyses were adjusted for parental intelligence, parental psychiatric symptoms, socio-economic status, and perinatal factors. In a subsample with diagnostic interview data, we tested if the results were independent of the presence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The results showed that children meeting the CBCL-DP (n = 110, 1.8%) had a 11.0 point lower nonverbal intelligence level than children without problems and 7.2-7.3 points lower nonverbal intelligence level than children meeting other profiles of problem behavior (all p values <0.001). After adjustment for covariates, children with CBCL-DP scored 8.3 points lower than children without problems (p < 0.001). The presence of ADHD or ASD did not account for the lower nonverbal intelligence in children with CBCL-DP. In conclusion, we found that children with CBCL-DP have a considerable lower nonverbal intelligence score. The CBCL-DP and nonverbal intelligence may share a common neurodevelopmental etiology.

Cognitive functioning in children with internalising, externalising and dysregulation problems: a population-based study

“…Thus, we performed a sensitivity analysis excluding children that scored above the population screening threshold on an ASD questionnaire After exclusion of these children, associations were attenuated but the differences in IQ between the dysregulation class and the reference class (data not shown) remained. This suggests that children with characteristics of ASD were partly responsible for the low IQ scores attributed to the dysregulation class in our previous study [66]. …”

The association of gender, age, and intelligence with neuropsychological functioning in young typically developing children: The Generation R study

“…Two subtests were performed: Mosaics, a performance subtest that assesses spatial insight, and Categories, a reasoning subtest that assesses abstract-reasoning abilities. More detailed information regarding the SON-R assessment has been described earlier (Basten et al, 2014). Because the NEPSY-II-NL data and data on intelligence were collected during different study visits, IQ data were available in only 679 of the 853 children in total.…”

White matter integrity and cognitive performance in school-age children: A population-based neuroimaging study

“…The SON-R 2½-7 is a measure of nonverbal intelligence for children between 2.5 and 7 years of age and was selected in order to minimize language-dependent confounds that may be present in a large, ethnically diverse sample such as the Generation R Study. An intelligence quotient (IQ) was estimated from the two SON-R performance subtests that were administered (Mosaics and Categories), which is highly correlated with estimates resulting from the complete version (Basten et al, 2014).…”