title: Parent ratings of executive function in young preschool children with symptoms of attention-deficit/-hyperactivity disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent research has demonstrated that deficits in basic, self-regulatory processes, or executive function (EF), may be related to symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) already during the preschool period. As the majority of studies investigating these relations in young children have been based primarily on clinically administered tests, it is not clear how early symptoms of ADHD may be related to observations of EF in an everyday context. The preschool version of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF-P) was developed to provide information about EF through observable, behavioral manifestations of self-regulation, and is the most commonly used rating scale for EF assessment in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Relations between symptoms of ADHD reported in the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment interview (PAPA), and EF as measured by the BRIEF-P (parent form), were investigated in a large, nonreferred sample of preschool children (37-47 months, n = 1134) recruited from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The inventory's discriminative ability was examined in a subsample consisting of children who met the diagnostic criteria for either ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or anxiety disorder, and typically developing controls (n = 308). The four groups were also compared with regard to patterns of EF difficulties reported in the BRIEF-P.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the five BRIEF-P subscales, Inhibit and Working Memory were the two most closely related to ADHD symptoms, together explaining 38.5% of the variance in PAPA symptom ratings. Based on their scores on the Inhibit and Working Memory subscales (combined), 86.4% of the children in the ADHD and TD groups were correctly classified. ADHD symptoms were associated with more severe difficulties across EF domains, and a different EF profile in comparison to children with other symptoms (anxiety, ODD) and to typically developing controls.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Early symptoms of ADHD were linked to parent-reported difficulties primarily within inhibition and working memory, suggesting that deficiencies within these two EF domains characterize early forms of ADHD. Our findings support the clinical utility of the BRIEF-P as a measure of EF in young preschool children with symptoms of ADHD.
authors.affiliation: Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Pb 4959, Nydalen, 0424, Oslo, Norway. annette.holth.skogan@ous-hf.no.
authors.forename: Annette Holth
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Skogan
authors.affiliation: Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital, Pb 4959, Nydalen, 0424, Oslo, Norway. pzeiner@online.no.
authors.forename: Pål
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zeiner
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, University of Oslo, Pb 1094, Blindern, 0317, Oslo, Norway. jens.egeland@piv.no.|Vestfold Hospital Trust, Pb 2267, 3103, Tønsberg, Norway. jens.egeland@piv.no.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Egeland
authors.affiliation: Regional Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Eastern and Southern Norway (RBUP), Pb 4623, Nydalen, 0405, Oslo, Norway. anne-grethe.urnes@r-bup.no.
authors.forename: Anne-Grethe
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Urnes
authors.affiliation: Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Pb 4404, Nydalen, 0403, Oslo, Norway. ted.reichborn-kjennerud@fhi.no.|Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Pb 1094, Blindern, 0317, Oslo, Norway. ted.reichborn-kjennerud@fhi.no.
authors.forename: Ted
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Reichborn-Kjennerud
authors.affiliation: Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Pb 4404, Nydalen, 0403, Oslo, Norway. heidi.aase@fhi.no.
authors.forename: Heidi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Aase
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000523:psychology*; D019958:Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004522:Educational Status; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009035:Mothers; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010290:Parents; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D015203:Reproducibility of Results