{"doi":"10.31234/osf.io/mtra9","title":"Cognitive difficulties following adversity are not related to mental health: findings from the ABCD study","abstract":"Early life adversity (ELA) is associated with poor cognitive and mental health outcomes. This study uses a hybrid machine learning approach that combines random forest classification with hierarchical clustering to clarify whether different forms of adversity are associated with distinct cognitive alterations, and identify whether any such changes are related mental health vulnerability in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort (n=5,955). Cognitive performance across measures spanning language, reasoning, memory, risk-taking, affective control, and reward-processing predicted whether a child had a history of ELA with reasonable accuracy (67%), and with good specificity and sensitivity (>70%). Hierarchical clustering identified two subgroups within the adversity group and two within the no-adversity group that were distinguished by cognitive ability (low vs high). There was no evidence for specific associations between the type or degree of adverse exposure and cognitive profile. While poorer cognitive function predicted worse mental health in unexposed children, cognitive ability was unrelated to mental health in the ELA group. These findings demonstrate that that while children who experience ELA have poorer mental health, their mental health does not differ as a function of cognitive ability, thus providing novel insight into the heterogeneity of psychiatric risk following adversity.","journal":"PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)","year":2023,"id":398527,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9637,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":997178,"name":"Joni Holmes","orcid":"0000-0002-6821-2793","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":997177,"name":"Maria Vedechkina","orcid":"0000-0002-4336-5195","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":85,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:19:47.744358Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}