[ad_1]
A new study from the Faculty of Medicine at Stanford University found that preschoolers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms are significantly less likely than other children of their age to be ready for school.
The study, which will be published online on July 21 in pediatrics, is among the first to examine in depth the school readiness of young children with ADHD. Several previous studies have addressed the academic difficulties of school-age children with ADHD, but few studies have investigated whether these children enter school after their peers.
"We were quite surprised by the proportion of children in the ADHD group who were not ready for school," said Irene Loe, MD, lead author of the study, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics. The study found that 79% of children with ADHD had lower readiness at school compared to 13% of children in the control group. "It's a very high number," Loe said.
The lead author of the study is Hannah Perrin, MD, who was a member of the Pediatric Development and Behavior at Stanford when the research was conducted.
The main symptoms of ADHD – inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity – may be normal in toddlers, and these behaviors sometimes persist during the preschool years, even in children who do not meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. This makes the disorder difficult to diagnose in preschool children. "Many of these kids are not identified until they really have a lot of problems in school," Loe said.
The study included 93 children aged 4 or 5 years. Almost all had attended or were currently enrolled in kindergarten and some were enrolled in kindergarten. The ADHD group included 45 children who had previously been diagnosed with the disorder or who had been identified by their parents as having significant levels of ADHD symptoms. The comparison group consisted of 48 children without ADHD. The researchers tested all the children to confirm their levels of ADHD symptoms.
The researchers conducted tests and administered questionnaires to parents to measure five aspects of children's functioning: physical well-being and motor development; social and emotional development; learning technique; language development; and cognition and general knowledge. "Learning approaches" included measures of executive function, that is, the ability of a person to prioritize their actions and tasks and exercise self-control to to regulate behavior and achieve long-term goals.
Children were considered impaired in one area of functioning if their badessment scores in this area were less than one standard deviation greater than their mean age score. They were considered not ready for school if they had been tampered with in at least two of the five areas of functioning measured in the study.
In difficulty in 4 of the 5 zones
The study found that children with ADHD were not more likely than their peers to show cognitive impairment and general knowledge. This area includes IQ and, importantly, the knowledge that people traditionally badociate with kindergarten preparation, such as being able to identify letters, numbers, shapes and colors.
But children with ADHD were much more likely than their peers to struggle in the other four areas measured. They were 73 times more likely than children without ADHD to be impaired in their learning approaches; more than seven times more likely to harm social and emotional development; six times more likely to interfere with language development; and three times more likely to harm physical well-being and motor development.
The badessment was broader than other school readiness measures that researchers have used in the past, Loe said. "We have looked more thoroughly at many aspects of the child," she said, adding that approaches to learning or executive function as a component of preparation for the future. school have been particularly under-researched.
The findings suggest that identifying and helping preschool children with significant levels of ADHD symptoms could reduce their difficulties in primary school.
"We need to help general pediatricians understand how they can identify children likely to miss school failure," Loe said. Families also need better access to behavioral therapy for preschool children with ADHD, which is not always available or covered by insurance, even if it is not available. is recommended as the first-line treatment for ADHD for this age group, she added.
"Thinking about how we can provide services for young children with ADHD or at high risk of diagnosis is really important," she said.
Loe is a member of the Stanford Institute for Maternal and Child Health Research. Nicole Heller, a former clinical research coordinator at Stanford, is also co-author of the research.
###
The study was funded by the Office of Maternal and Child Health, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services; a Katharine McCormick Research Fellowship; a career start pilot grant from the Stanford Children's Health Research Institute; and the National Institutes of Health (grants K23HD071971 and UL1 TR0001085).
The Stanford Pediatrics Department also supported the work.
The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the top medical schools in the country, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community services. For more information about the school, visit http: // med.
Warning: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of the news releases published on EurekAlert! contributing institutions or for the use of any information via the EurekAlert system.
Source link
