To celebrate the Child and Adolescent Mental Health journal’s 25th anniversary, we have released the 25 top cited articles of all time*! All papers are freely available online for you to read.
Number 18 is…
The Diagnostic Utility of Executive Function Assessments in the Identification of ADHD in Children
Joni Holmes, Susan E. Gathercole, Maurice Place, Tracy P. Alloway, Julian G. Elliott, Kerry A. Hilton
First Published: 04 January 2010
Key Practitioner Message
- ADHD diagnoses are often based heavily upon symptoms assessed by behavioural checklists. These can lack diagnostic utility.
- It is possible to enhance clinical diagnoses of ADHD by employing neuropsychological / cognitive tests of executive functioning;
- Where there is little opportunity to undertake a full range of cognitive measures, brief tests of response inhibition and working memory can provide high levels of discrimination between individuals with and without ADHD.
- Guidance from clinicians about the difficulties in executive functioning experienced by children with ADHD may prove helpful to teachers and parents.
* as of December 2019
