Family Neuropsychological Approach to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): An Exploratory Study

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a highly heritable disorder, often parents of children with ADHD also present psychiatric conditions. Literature reports that executive functions deficits (EFD) are frequently present in these parents, leading to negative influences on the children´s executive functions (EF) development. Most of these studies have been conducted with self-report scales, research with formal neuropsychological tests is lacking. Objective: To explore the presence and the relationship between the executive functions deficits (EFD) and the psychiatric diagnosis in family trios: mother, father, and their male son with ADHD-diagnosis. Method: Participants: 20 family trios: parental couples (mother and father) and their male son with ADHD diagnosis, living all together. The evaluation was performed with a wide-range EF battery (eleven sub-tests), and with psychiatrist evaluation structured interview (MINI-Kid/MINI-PLUS). Logistic binary regression was used to determinate which EFD identified each individual group (mothers, fathers, children), and each combined group (all parents, all males, males with ADHD). IQ was controlled. Results: 50% of mothers presented depression, and 30% anxiety, while 45% of fathers presented ADHD. Diverse clinical and subclinical EFD were identified. Three EF were mainly affected: working memory, attentional performance, and semantic categorization. Particularly the former two were affected in children and in the father´s group with ADHD. Conclusions: Parents’ clinical and cognitive characteristics impose developmental challenges in children with ADHD. A developmental neuropsychological family -systemic- approach for ADHD is advisable, to avoid considering the child as the only member with a clinical condition.