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Abstract
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Objective: Deficits in the social cognition domain are observed in children with ADHD; while both emotion regulation difficulties and social deficits are associated with impaired social, academic, behavioral and familial functioning. The aim of the present study is to examine that ToM deficits may increase difficulties in emotion regulation. Methods: Participants were 200 children aged 11-17 years; 100 meeting the DSM-IV criteria for ADHD and 100 healthy controls. Differences in specific and overall difficulties with emotion regulation were examined in ADHD children using the multidimensional Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Social cognition deficits were quantified by Theory of Mind (ToM) tasks, and the ADHD-Rating Scale-IV form was used for determination of ADHD symptom severity. Results: ADHD sample had more overall difficulties regulating their emotions (F (1, 198) = 35.34, p= .000, ƞ2 = .151) than control sample. Within the ADHD group, we found significant correlations between the DERS-Total score, ADHD symptom severity, Unexpected Outcomes Task (UOT) and gender. Multiple regression analysis showed that UOT scores accounted for 34% of the variance found in DERS-Total scores (p=0.000). Adding gender, ADHD symptom severity increased the accounted variance to 56%. Conclusion: Our findings show that social cognitive deficits may partly explain emotion dysregulation in children with ADHD.
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