Brain Development Slower in Kids With ADHD

It may seem that everything about your child with ADHD is super-speedy and revved-up, but new research suggests there's one thing that's slow about kids with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder: their brain development.

According to a Reuters report, ADHD-affected brains run a few years behind their peers in the formation and pruning of neural connections.

Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health used MRIs to compare the brains of 223 kids with an ADHD diagnosis and 223 without, and found that, while the cerebral cortex of the "normal" subjects reached maximum thickness at about 7.5 years of age, their hyperactive counterparts didn't hit that stage until about age 10.5.

That means that the process of eliminating unneeded neural connections and streamlining cognitive processes began earlier for the non-ADHD brains, too, leaving kids with ADHD to deal with excess neural input when their peers were outgrowing it.

The researchers were careful to say that this doesn't mean you shouldn't treat ADHD; one of the group, Dr. Philip Shaw, is quoted as saying "What I wouldn't take away from this study is: 'Just sit and wait three years and your kid will be OK.'" There are certainly repercussions to being three years behind your peers in things like impulse control and attentiveness, and damage that can't be undone.

Still, I wonder how many kids with ADHD could be helped with a simple understanding of the fact that they're working from a less-mature place -- not misbehaving so much as behaving appropriately for an earlier developmental level? So often, the problem with these kids is one of expectations: If you are in a school environment that expects you to act the same as your age peers, or you're in a home environment where you're expected to behave according to strict standards, you're going to fail, and fail spectacularly.

It's probably easier to build flexibility of expectation into home life than into our school systems, but it's needed both places. Maybe this research will start poking things in the right direction.