Executive functions and emotional disturbance

This chapter will present an overarching model of executive functions that offers a framework for discussing the role of executive functions in cueing and directing perceptions, emotions, cognitions, and actions, and how executive functions relate to emotional disturbance. Also discussed in the chapter is the diagnosis of emotional disturbance from the perspective of executive function involvement, methods for assessing the executive function deficits of children experiencing emotional disturbance, and intervention strategies that address the executive function deficits of children demonstrating emotional disturbances. Much more space than has been allotted for this chapter could be devoted to a discussion of exactly what constitutes emotions and emotional disturbance and the specific frontal lobe neural circuits representing executive functions that are thought to be involved in the various expressions of emotions and emotional disturbance in children. For the purposes of brevity, Table 4-1 provides a listing of research studies that have linked frontal lobe neural circuitry involving executive functions with specific emotional disorders. Interested readers should also examine the volume entitled Frontal subcortical circuits in psychiatric and neurological disorders edited by Lichter and Cummings (2001). Many of the other chapters in this volume have devoted significant space to discussions of the type of research summarized in Table 4-1 and Lichter and Cummings. Rather than repeat or summarize the content presented in those chapters, this chapter extends the discussion further by examining the role of executive functions in emotional disturbance. Readers are provided with a brief description of an information processing model that integrates emotion with perception, cognition and action, and a comprehensive model of executive function capacities that cue and direct perception, emotion, cognition, and action. The remainder of the chapter discusses the implications of this comprehensive model of executive functions for the assessment and diagnosis of emotional disturbance and for the development of interventions that deal with the problems created by emotional disturbance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)