Hardy KK, et al. - Neurocognition in survivors of brain tumors and children was compared with neurodevelopmental attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study reported functional profiles in nearly a quarter of survivors with attention symptoms. These functional profiles were similar to children with neurodevelopmental ADHD. Moreover, screening for ADHD symptoms seemed to help providers triage a subset of individuals in need of earlier or additional neuropsychological assessment.

Methods

• From clinically-referred brain tumor survivors (n=105, Mage=12.0 years, 52.4% male) and children with ADHD (n=178, Mage=11.1, 64.0% male), neuropsychological data were abstracted.
• Moreover, data consisted of a battery of parent-report questionnaires and performance-based neuropsychological measures.

Results

• Symptom criteria for ADHD were fulfilled by twenty-five survivors (23.8%).
• Findings demonstrated significantly greater parent- (p<0.001) and teacher-reported (p<0.001) working memory and behavior regulation difficulties in participants with neurodevelopmental ADHD and survivors who met ADHD criteria than survivors who did not meet criteria.
• As compared to survivors without ADHD symptoms (p<0.001), children with ADHD symptoms also performed worse on measures of sustained attention.
• This study found greater performance-based working memory difficulties in survivors with ADHD symptoms than either survivors without attention problems or children with neurodevelopmental ADHD (p=0.002).