ArticleJournal of abnormal child psychology2015
Hyperactivity in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Impairing Deficit or Compensatory Behavior?
Article in Journal of abnormal child psychology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 69 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
69 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 143 citations in OpenAlex.
- Is Clinical Anxiety a Risk or a Protective Factor for Executive Functioning in Youth with ADHD? A Meta-regression Analysis.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2018Pooled it
- Is hyperactivity ubiquitous in ADHD or dependent on environmental demands? Evidence from meta-analysis.Clinical psychology review · 2016Pooled it
- Impact of fidget devices on anxiety and physiological responses in adults with ADHD.Research in developmental disabilities · 2025Trial
- Comparison of Fidgeting in Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Between Before and After Stimulant Medication Intake.Journal of child and adolescent psychopharmacology · 2023Trial
- A randomized controlled trial of central executive training (CET) versus inhibitory control training (ICT) for ADHD.Journal of consulting and clinical psychology · 2020Trial
- Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder-Related Deficits and Psychostimulant Medication Effects on Comprehension of Audiovisually Presented Educational Material in Children.Journal of child and adolescent psychopharmacology · 2018Trial
- Neurocognitive and behavioral predictors of the simple view of reading in clinically evaluated children with and without ADHD.Neuropsychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Self-Reported ADHD Symptoms and Cognitive Performance in a National Sample of US Older Adults.Journal of attention disorders · 2026Article
- Multimodal Virtual Reality Assessment of Medication Effects in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Its Distinction From Depression: Cross-Sectional Study.JMIR human factors · 2026Article
- The Influence of Noise Perception and Parent-Rated Developmental Characteristics on White Noise Benefits in Children.Journal of eye movement research · 2026Article
- Medication vs. Movement in ADHD: Interaction Between Medication and Physical Activity on Neurocognitive Functioning.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Urinary Metabolic Biomarkers of Attentional Control in Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Dimensional Approach ThroughNMR in biomedicine · 2025Article
- Perspectives on Physical Activity and Learning from Children With and Without ADHD.Sports (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Individual Differences in the Neurocognitive Effect of Movement During Executive Functioning in Children with ADHD: Impact of Subtype, Severity, and Gender.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Ecological Validity of Clinic-Based Actigraphy for Assessing Hyperactivity in Clinically Evaluated Children with and without ADHD.Journal of psychopathology and behavioral assessment · 2025Article
- Hyperactive-impulsive behavior does not moderate the association between executive function and physical activity in preschoolers.Scientific reports · 2025Observational
- Examining the roles of working memory and trait anxiety on math achievement in children with ADHD.Neuropsychology · 2025Article
- Evaluating attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a review of current methods and issues.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Associations between anxiety and working memory components in clinically evaluated children with and without ADHD.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
9 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Excess gross motor activity (hyperactivity) is considered a core diagnostic feature of childhood ADHD that impedes learning. This view has been challenged, however, by recent models that conceptualize excess motor activity as a compensatory mechanism that facilitates neurocognitive functioning in children with ADHD. The current study investigated competing model predictions regarding activity level's relation with working memory (WM) performance and attention in boys aged 8-12 years (M = 9.64, SD = 1.26) with ADHD (n = 29) and typically developing children (TD; n = 23). Children's phonological WM and attentive behavior were objectively assessed during four counterbalanced WM tasks administered across four separate sessions. These data were then sequenced hierarchically based on behavioral observations of each child's gross motor activity during each task. Analysis of the relations among intra-individual changes in observed activity level, attention, and performance revealed that higher rates of activity level predicted significantly better, but not normalized WM performance for children with ADHD. Conversely, higher rates of activity level predicted somewhat lower WM performance for TD children. Variations in movement did not predict changes in attention for either group. At the individual level, children with ADHD and TD children were more likely to be classified as reliably Improved and Deteriorated, respectively, when comparing their WM performance at their highest versus lowest observed activity level. These findings appear most consistent with models ascribing a functional role to hyperactivity in ADHD, with implications for selecting behavioral treatment targets to avoid overcorrecting gross motor activity during academic tasks that rely on phonological WM.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.