Disentangling risk factors for the development of ADHD symptoms – The interaction of impulsivity and inhibition

• Applicant: Dr. Julia Kerner auch Körner
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 508725348

With a prevalence of 5% Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most frequent childhood psychiatric disorders (Polanczyk et al., 2007). Undiagnosed and untreated ADHD imposes a significant economic burden on society (Le et al., 2014). The burden for society but also for the child with ADHD and its family multiplies if ADHD is not diagnosed and treated early (Asherson et al., 2012). Predicting which child will develop ADHD symptoms, is of crucial importance for the development of early preventive interventions. Risk factors for ADHD have been researched in school age and replicated in few studies in preschool. At the current state of research two risk factors, impulsivity and inhibition are seen as equally important (Sonuga-Barke, 2002). However, the interaction of the two factors in development has not been postulated or investigated so far. The innovation of this project is that it will disentangle the influence of the two risk factors impulsivity and inhibition in development of ADHD symptoms by testing a compensatory developmental model of ADHD. In this model impulsivity is assumed to be a stable biologically based risk factor, whereas inhibition can be a protective compensatory factor that is influenced by the environment. According to the compensatory developmental model of ADHD only if the impulsivity is high and there is no compensation by inhibition a child develops ADHD symptoms.In this project 300 children from the general population (non clinical) will complete tasks measuring impulsivity (i.e., gift delay, snack delay, attractive toy, popping bubbles, pop-up snake, racetrack) and inhibition (i.e., Go-NoGo, stroop, simon) at the age of three and four years. Parents and kindergarten teachers will rate the ADHD symptoms. By using structural equation modeling and latent modeling of the constructs impulsivity, inhibition and ADHD, we aim to show that impulsivity and inhibition interact in the development of ADHD symptoms.Evidence for the compensatory developmental model of ADHD would have implications for early identification of children at risk (focusing on high impulsivity) and for preventive interventions (focusing on training inhibitory control). Hereby, children at risk for ADHD could be identified before the financial burden for society and the psychological burden for the child and its family multiply.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Monika Daseking