Impairments in Emotion Recognition and Positive Emotion Regulation Predict Social Difficulties in Adolescent With ADHD

Background Emotional dysregulation, poor emotion recognition and impaired response inhibition have been highlighted as potential contributors to social difficulties in adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is currently unknown how these areas of impairment relate to one another; therefore, this study aims to identify the areas of emotion regulation which are associated with social difficulties in adolescents with ADHD, and determine whether emotion regulation mediates the relationship between deficits in response inhibition and emotion recognition, and social functioning, in this cohort. Methods Thirty Australian adolescents (Male = 21) with ADHD completed measures of response inhibition, emotion recognition, and emotion regulation. Results Positive emotion regulation was significantly associated with social difficulties. Although emotion recognition significantly predicted social difficulties, there was no relationship between emotion recognition and emotion regulation in this sample, ruling out emotion regulation as a mediator of emotion recognition and social difficulties. Whilst response inhibition was significantly correlated with positive emotion regulation, positive emotion regulation did not mediate the relationship between response inhibition and social difficulties. Conclusions Difficulties recognising and regulating emotions appear to independently contribute to social difficulties in adolescents with ADHD. Interventions to increase emotional understanding and developing strategies to down-regulate positive emotions may be beneficial.