Executive Functioning and Psychopathology in Psychotherapy for Adolescents with Specific Learning Disorders

This study examined the contribution of executive functioning (EF) to improvements in psychiatric symptomatology following I Can Succeed (ICS; Kopelman-Rubin, 2012) psychotherapy, a skill-enhancement intervention designed to target EF and socio-emotional aspects of specific learning disabilities (SLD). Forty adolescents with SLD underwent ICS in an open clinical trial. Executive functions and psychiatric symptomatology were measured before and after treatment plus at a six-month followup. Findings indicated that greater improvement in EF (specifically inhibitory control and semantic fluency) during psychotherapy was linked with lower severity of internalizing symptoms at the end of treatment. In addition, only better baseline inhibitory control was linked to greater improvement in the severity of both internalizing and externalizing symptoms from the end of treatment to the six-month followup. The findings highlight the importance of addressing EF and psychopathology symptoms in psychotherapy with adolescents with SLD.