Executive functions profile in children and adolescents with anxiety disorders and their training as a therapeutic way for their intervention and prevention: A systematic review

The term executive functions refers to the cognitive processes that allow humans to establish goals, lead their behavior toward such goals and check their achievements. These functions emerge gradually, due to the slow and late maturing of the prefrontal cortex. Suffering anxiety disorders can interfere with the acquisition of these functions. This study carries out a detailed systematic review of observed alterations of the above functions in children and adolescents diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. The present study also reviews intervention programmes that focus on these cognitive processes in this clinical population. Results show a common altered executive profile in these patients, characterized by alterations in selective attention. In this sense, most intervention programmes aim to change cognitive and attention biases. Our work has noticed a lack of programmes aimed at rehabilitating other altered processes such as: working memory, planning skills, abstract reasoning, flexibility or decision-making processes.