• Posted April 10, 2026

Early Diagnosis Key To ADHD Child's Academic Success, Study Finds

FRIDAY, April 10, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Children with ADHD are more apt to have a bright future if they’re diagnosed in their early elementary years rather than as high schoolers, a new study says.

Kids diagnosed with ADHD at an earlier age are more likely to have better grades and go on to college, researchers reported April 8 in JAMA Psychiatry. They’re also less likely to drop out of school.

“ADHD diagnosis during the first years of school was associated with better school performance, more academic track choices and lower probability of school dropout,” concluded the research team led by Lotta Volotinen, a doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

“The findings support the recommendations for earlier diagnosis, and screening for ADHD before age 12 years should be considered,” the team wrote.

Early diagnosis gives children a leg up by giving them access to support, ADHD treatments and special accommodations from schools like extra time during tests, said Dr. Victor Fornari, vice chair for child and adolescent psychiatry at Northwell Zucker Hillside Hospital and Northwell Cohen Children's Medical Center in Queens, New York.

“These interventions are so important because often the child will feel as though they don't have the capacity when actually indeed they may have fine intellect, but their poor attention span will limit their academic accomplishments,” Fornari added.

For the new study, researchers tracked more than 580,000 children born in Finland between 1990 and 1999. Of that group, about 12,200 boys and 3,700 girls were diagnosed with ADHD.

The study compared the timing of their ADHD diagnosis to their educational achievements, to see whether getting a diagnosis early made any difference in their success.

Overall, any child with ADHD had poorer educational outcomes than those without a diagnosis, researchers found.

However, kids’ school performance differed significantly by age at diagnosis, with those diagnosed early in their education doing better than those diagnosed around age 16 or later.

“The poorest educational outcomes were observed among those who were diagnosed with ADHD toward the end of compulsory education,” researchers wrote. “Those who were diagnosed toward the end of compulsory education had the least amount of time to benefit from the diagnosis and improve their school performance” prior to graduation.

It’s already well-known that an ADHD diagnosis puts a child at risk for poor academic performance, Fornari said.

"It's extremely critical that those youth with ADHD be identified early in education in order for them to reach their fullest potential academically and to ensure that they remain in the educational system and aren't dropping out of school,” he said.

This can be very difficult for parents of children who have attention deficit problems but aren’t hyperactive, Fornari noted.

“Oftentimes parents prefer a ‘wait and see’ attitude before intervening,” he said. “For children who aren't hyperactive, the challenge is sometimes they're inattentive, but they sit quietly. It's harder for teachers and families to identify these youth because they're not hyperactive and their inattention and distractibility may not be as clear.”

He urged families to be open-minded.

“It really requires families to be open to the idea that their child might have ADHD, even if they're not hyperactive,” Fornari said. “Oftentimes this is true for the girls who are inattentive and distracted, but not hyperactive.”

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has more on supporting students with ADHD.

SOURCES: JAMA Psychiatry, April 8, 2026; Dr. Victor Fornari, vice chair for child and adolescent psychiatry, Northwell Zucker Hillside Hospital and Northwell Cohen Children's Medical Center, Queens, N.Y.