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Objective: To determine whether girls and boys with ADHD show distinct impairments in components of cognitive control across multiple tasks (go/no-go, stop signal, and flanker) and performance metrics (response speed, variability, and errors). Method: A total of 300 children, ages 8 to 12 years with ADHD (n = 210, 58 girls) or typically developing (TD; n = 99, 37 girls), completed all tasks. Traditional response measures (e.g., mean and standard deviation of reaction time, inhibition errors, and stop signal reaction time) and ex-Gaussian modeling of reaction times (mu, sigma, and tau) were analyzed. Results: Girls showed intact response inhibition in the context of slower response speed, while boys made more inhibition errors and did not slow their response speed. Both girls and boys with ADHD showed higher response variability and poorer interference control than TD children. Conclusion: Girls and boys with ADHD show distinct impairments in cognitive control that may be important for understanding the pathophysiology of ADHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The tendency to prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed rewards is known as delay discounting (DD). Developmental deviations in DD may be key in characterizing psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Recent work empirically supported DD as a transdiagnostic process in various psychiatric disorders. Yet, there is a lack of research relating developmental changes in DD from mid‐childhood to adolescence to psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Additionally, examining the interplay between socioeconomic status/total household income (THI) and psychiatric symptoms is vital for a more comprehensive understanding of pediatric pathology and its complex relationship with DD. Methods: The current study addresses this gap in a robust psychiatric sample of 1843 children and adolescents aged 5–18 (M = 10.6, SD = 3.17; 1,219 males, 624 females). General additive models (GAMs) characterized the shape of age‐related changes in monetary and food reward discounting for nine psychiatric disorders compared with neurotypical youth (NT; n = 123). Over 40% of our sample possessed a minimum of at least three psychiatric or neurodevelopmental disorders. We used bootstrap‐enhanced Louvain community detection to map DD‐related comorbidity patterns. We derived five subtypes based on diagnostic categories present in our sample. DD patterns were then compared across each of the subtypes. Further, we evaluated the effect of cognitive ability, emotional and behavioral problems, and THI in relation to DD across development. Results: Higher discounting was found in six of the nine disorders we examined relative to NT. DD was consistently elevated across development for most disorders, except for depressive disorders, with age‐specific DD differences compared with NTs. Community detection analyses revealed that one comorbidity subtype consisting primarily of Attention‐Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Combined Presentation and anxiety disorders displayed the highest overall emotional/behavioral problems and greater DD for the food reward. An additional subtype composed mainly of ADHD, predominantly Inattentive Presentation, learning, and developmental disorders, showed the greatest DD for food and monetary rewards compared with the other subtypes. This subtype had deficits in reasoning ability, evidenced by low cognitive and academic achievement performance. For this ADHD‐I and developmental disorders subtype, THI was related to DD across the age span such that participants with high THI showed no differences in DD compared with NTs. In contrast, participants with low THI showed significantly worse DD trajectories than all others. Our results also support prior work showing that DD follows nonlinear developmental patterns. Conclusions: We demonstrate preliminary evidence for DD as a transdiagnostic marker of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders in children and adolescents. Comorbidity subtypes illuminate DD heterogeneity, facilitating the identification of high‐risk individuals. Importantly, our findings revealed a marked link between DD and intellectual reasoning, with children from lower‐income households exhibiting lower reasoning skills and heightened DD. These observations underscore the potential consequences of compromised self‐regulation in economically disadvantaged individuals with these disorders, emphasizing the need for tailored interventions and further research to support improved outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the developmental trajectory of neurodevelopmental motor signs among boys and girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and typically-developing (TD) children. Seventy children with ADHD and 48 TD children, aged 8–17 years, were evaluated on at least two time-points using the Physical and Neurological Assessment of Subtle Signs (PANESS). Age-related changes in subtle motor signs (overflow, dysrhythmia, speed) were modeled using linear mixed-effects models to compare the developmental trajectories among four subgroups (ADHD girls and boys and TD girls and boys). Across visits, both boys and girls with ADHD showed greater overflow, dysrhythmia, and slower speed on repetitive motor tasks compared to TD peers; whereas, only girls with ADHD were slower on sequential motor tasks than TD girls. Developmental trajectory analyses revealed a greater reduction in overflow with age among boys with ADHD than TD boys; whereas, trajectories did not differ among girls with and without ADHD, or among boys and girls with ADHD. For dysrhythmia and speed, there were no trajectory differences between the subgroups, with all groups showing similar reductions with age. Children with ADHD show developmental trajectories of subtle motor signs that are consistent with those of TD children, with one clear exception: Boys with ADHD show more significant reductions in overflow from childhood to adolescence than do their TD peers. Our findings affirm the presence of subtle motor signs in children with ADHD and suggest that some of these signs, particularly motor overflow in boys, resolve through adolescence while dysrhythmia and slow speed, may persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]