Archival ReportNeural Changes Associated with Treatment Outcome in Children with Externalizing Problems
Section snippets
Participants
The EEG data were collected from 140 children (107 boys), 8–12 years of age, with externalizing behavior problems, over a span of 5 years (2005–2010). Children were recruited in collaboration with two treatment agencies. Participants were referred to these agencies by mental health professionals, teachers, and/or parents. Inclusion criteria for the study consisted of scores within the clinical or borderline-clinical range on the externalizing subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) (43
Behavioral Results
A 2(Session: pre vs. post) × 2(Group: improvers vs. nonimprovers) × 3(Block: A vs. B vs. C) mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted for go/no-go performance accuracy and for go response time. A Session × Group interaction was found, whereby improvers showed greater increases in accuracy from pre- to post-treatment than nonimprovers [F(1,65) = 5.53, p = .02, partial η2 = .08]. Collapsing across block, improvers had lower accuracy scores than nonimprovers before treatment (p =
Discussion
The present study found that the neural correlates of SR differed between children with clinically significant externalizing behavior problems and an age-matched comparison group, but both behavioral and neural indices of SR changed when clinical children improved with treatment.
We first confirmed that larger N2 magnitudes and smaller frontal P3 magnitudes characterized the clinical children. Larger N2 amplitudes suggested, consistent with other reports on medial frontal negativities, less
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