The Relationship between Poor Executive Functioning and Social Functioning and the Efficacy of Brain Training on Social Functioning

Background: brain processes are controlled and directed by some brainfunctions called executive functioning. poor ef affects amelioration of brainfunctions and related behaviors in social and academic life. in the presentresearch, we investigated the relationship between ef and social functions andtested the brain training effect on ef and social functioning improvement.methods: the present study aims to investigate the correlation between pooref and social self-efficacy and social adjustment and examine the efficacy ofcognitive ef training on selected components of social functioning. throughavailable sampling, 369 healthy high school students aged 16-18 participatedin the experiment who were randomly assigned into experimental and controlgroups; the experimental group consisted of 183 persons (105 girls and 78 boys)and the control group consisted of 186 persons (117 girls and 69 boys). mainef processes (working memory, shifting, inhibition and problem solving) andsocial functions (social adjustment and social self-efficacy) were assessed andtheir correlations were measured. in a randomized controlled trial with pretest,post-test and follow-up assessment, the effects of cognitive brain training wasstudied on self-efficacy and social adjustment performance of the experimentalgroup. the intervention tool was practical cognitive strategy training (pcst)which used cognitive awareness, cognitive strategy training and cognitivetraining to accomplish both goals of ef training in twelve ninety-minutesessions, once a week.results: result showed significant moderate correlation between social andexecutive functions (p ≤ .001). after twelve weeks of brain training practice,participants showed a significant difference in social adjustment and self-efficacycompared with the control group. the pre-, post- and follow-up tests were timeconsumingand might have affected the results.conclusion: social functions correlate with ef performance and cognitive braintraining can improve social adjustment and self-efficacy.