Differentiating Preschool Children with Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Behaviors through Emotion Regulation and Executive Functioning.

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are important characteristics for identifying severe patterns of conduct problems (CP). The current study focused on (a) identifying subgroups of young children displaying a combination of CP and CU and (b) examining the extent to which executive functioning (EF) and emotion regulation (ER) are associated with CU behaviors. Participants included 249 preschoolers ( = 249, 78% boys,  = 4.95 years; 81% Latino/Hispanic) referred to treatment because of externalizing behavior problems. CU behaviors and CP were measured via a combination of teacher/parent rating scales. A multimethod approach was used to measure EF and ER including parent/teacher rating scales, neuropsychological, and observational tasks. Poorer ER as rated by parents/teachers and observed was associated with greater levels of CU behaviors. Latent profile analyses identified three subgroups of children displaying (a) low CU/low CP, (b) moderate CU/moderate CP, and (c) high CU/high CP. Children in the high CU/high-CP group were rated as having significantly poorer rated ER compared to all other groups and poorer observed ER compared to the low-CU/low-CP group. Exploratory analyses found that children in the high-CU/high-CP group displayed marginally lower levels of rated ER but significantly better EF performance on standardized neuropsychological tasks compared to children in a low-CU/high-CP group.Children with higher levels of reported CU behaviors and CP display poorer ER yet may display relatively EF performance compared to children with lower levels of CU behaviors and CP.