Executive Functioning as a Pathway Between Social Skills and Psychopathology: The Moderating Role of Autism Diagnosis

Internalizing and externalizing problems are highly prevalent among children and adolescents, with higher rates observed particularly among those with neurodevelopmental disorders. Previous studies have identified deficits in social competence and executive functioning (EF) as predictive factors of internalizing and externalizing problems, and some studies have indicated that EF mediates this association in autistic individuals. However, the role of EF and social competence across autistic and typically developing (TD) individuals remains underexplored in relation to internalizing and externalizing behaviors. We address this gap by using two moderated mediation analyses assessing the mediating effects of EF in the association between social skills and internalizing and externalizing problems. Poor metacognitive functioning was found to mediate the relationship between social skill deficits and internalizing problems only among autistic children and adolescents, whereas behavior dysregulation mediated the relationship between poor social skills and externalizing problems among both autistic and TD children and adolescents. These mediating effects of EF, however, were not moderated across the two diagnostic groups. These findings highlight the role of different domains of EF, that is, metacognitive functioning and behavior dysregulation in internalizing and externalizing problems, which can help identify early EF-related vulnerabilities and inform EF-based interventions for psychological problems among autistic and TD children and adolescents.