Social communication mediates the relationship between emotion perception and externalizing behaviors in young adult survivors of pediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Highlights: [•] We investigate very-long social outcomes in 34 young adult survivors of pediatric TBI, and 16 healthy controls. [•] Results provide evidence for persisting socio-cognitive and communicative dysfunction 16-years post-TBI. [•] Greater social communication difficulty is linked to more frequent externalizing behaviors. [•] Social communication mediates the relationship between emotion perception and externalizing behaviors in the TBI sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]