Emotional awareness and cognitive performance in borderline intellectual functioning young adolescents

According to DSM-5 and ICD-10, borderline intellectual functioning(BIF) should not be classified properly as a disorder. However, BIF people maypresent relevant problems of adaptive functioning in several areas of daily activities,and they seemto be more vulnerable to mental diseases. Young adolescencemay be considered a particular period for emotional information processing. The“own and others' emotions” awareness can play a crucial role in many daily lifesituations, such as decision making, interpersonal relationships, and decodingof facial expressions. On this background, a BIF young adolescents groupunderwent a neuropsychological assessment including emotional and cognitivedomains, and was compared with a healthy young adolescents control group(HC). In the overall sample, a significant negative correlation between general intellectualabilities and emotional awareness was found. The BIF group showed asignificantly greater level of alexithymia and a poorer performance in higher cognitivetasks than HC group. As hypothesized, a border cognitive functioning influencesmentalization processes as ability to discriminate and monitor emotions, aswell as higher domains of cognition.