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

journal contribution
posted on 2013-12-01, 00:00 authored by Nicholas RyanNicholas Ryan, Vicki Anderson, Celia Godfrey, Senem Eren, Stefanie Rosema, Kaitlyn Taylor, Cathy Catroppa
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a common cause of childhood disability, and is associated with elevated risk for long-term social impairment. Though social (pragmatic) communication deficits may be among the most debilitating consequences of childhood TBI, few studies have examined very long-term communication outcomes as children with TBI make the transition to young adulthood. In addition, the extent to which reduced social function contributes to externalizing behaviors in survivors of childhood TBI remains poorly understood. The present study aimed to evaluate the extent of social communication difficulty among young adult survivors of childhood TBI (n=34, injury age: 1.0-7.0 years; M time since injury: 16.55 years) and examine relations among aspects of social function including emotion perception, social communication and externalizing behaviors rated by close-other proxies. Compared to controls the TBI group had significantly greater social communication difficulty, which was associated with more frequent externalizing behaviors and poorer emotion perception. Analyses demonstrated that reduced social communication mediated the association between poorer emotion perception and more frequent externalizing behaviors. Our findings indicate that socio-cognitive impairments may indirectly increase the risk for externalizing behaviors among young adult survivors of childhood TBI, and underscore the need for targeted social skills interventions delivered soon after injury, and into the very long-term.

History

Journal

International journal of developmental neuroscience

Volume

31

Issue

8

Pagination

811 - 819

Publisher

Elsevier

Location

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

ISSN

0736-5748

eISSN

1873-474X

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2013, ISDN