• Posted November 26, 2024

Preschoolers' Tantrums Can Be Early Sign of ADHD

Preschoolers prone to tantrums appear to have a higher risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) by the time they reach school age, a new study says.

Young children who struggle to control their emotions and behavior have more ADHD symptoms by age 7, researchers found.

Their conduct is more likely to be poor and they are more apt to suffer from emotional problems like sadness or worry by that age, results show.

“Emotion regulation skills are acquired from early in life and are thought to strengthen gradually over childhood,” lead researcher Aja Murray, a lecturer in psychology with the University of Edinburgh in the U.K., said in a news release. “Children, however, acquire these skills at different rates and slower acquisition may serve as a marker for neurodevelopmental and mental health issues.”

For the study, researchers analyzed data on roughly 19,000 young people born between 2000 and 2002 in the U.K.

Results showed that ADHD symptoms are significantly associated with a child’s tendency to have extreme emotional responses and slower development of their ability to regulate those emotions, researchers said.

The less able children were able to manage their emotions, the greater their risk for ADHD, results show.

This association held even after other risk factors for ADHD and mental health problems were taken into account, researchers said.

Based on these results, early testing might be developed that could help parents and teachers identify kids at risk of ADHD and provide them extra support and therapy, researchers said.

“Our findings suggest that monitoring trajectories of emotion regulation over development could help identity which children are at risk of mental health issues,” Murray said.

The new study appears in the journal Development and Psychopathology.

More information

The National Institute of Mental Health has more about ADHD.

SOURCE: University of Edinburgh, news release, Nov. 21, 2024