Findings of a new study suggest that most children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) don’t outgrow the disorder. It manifests in adult life in different ways and has its ups and downs throughout their lifetime. The research was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Lead researcher Margaret Sibley, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine and a researcher at Seattle Children’s Research Institute said, “It’s important for people diagnosed with ADHD to understand that it’s normal to have times in your life where things may be more unmanageable and other times when things feel more under control.”
Study authors from 16 institutions in the United States, Canada, and Brazil said decades of research characterise ADHD as a neurobiological disorder typically first detected in childhood that persists into adulthood in approximately 50 per cent of cases.
“Although intermittent periods of remission can be expected in most cases, 90% of children with ADHD in the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD continued to experience residual symptoms into young adulthood,” they wrote. ADHD is characterized by two main clusters of symptoms, according to researchers. The inattentive symptoms look like disorganization, forgetfulness, and having trouble staying on task. Then there are also the hyperactive, impulsive symptoms.
These symptoms in children look like they have a lot of energy. In adults, it manifests more as verbal impulsivity, difficulty with decision-making, and not thinking before acting. The study followed a group of 558 children with ADHD for 16 years - from 8-year old to 25 year old. The cohort had eight assessments, every two years, to determine whether they had symptoms of ADHD. The researchers also asked their family members and teachers about their symptoms.
Sibley said the belief that 50 per cent of children outgrow ADHD was first put forward in the mid-1990s. Most studies, she said, only re-connected with the kids one time in adulthood. So, researchers didn't get to see that the ADHD that they thought had gone away actually does come back.
