Parent-teacher agreement on ADHD symptoms across development

Area of Science:

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Developmental Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Parent-teacher agreement on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom ratings is typically low to moderate.
• Previous studies often lack measurement invariance assessment, creating uncertainty about the source of discordance.
• The developmental trajectory of parent-teacher agreement for ADHD symptoms remains largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate parent-teacher agreement on ADHD symptoms using a large, developmentally diverse sample (ages 4-17).
• To assess measurement invariance of ADHD symptom structure across raters and age groups.
• To examine the influence of development on parent-teacher agreement and symptom severity.

Main Methods:

• Employed exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on a large sample (N=6,659).
• Confirmed a robust 2-factor structure for 18 ADHD symptoms, including cross-loadings.
• Conducted measurement invariance analyses across parent and teacher raters and age cohorts.

Main Results:

• A 2-factor ADHD symptom structure (inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity) was confirmed and invariant across raters and ages.
• Parents reported higher ADHD symptom severity than teachers; hyperactivity/impulsivity decreased with age.
• Correlations between parent-teacher ratings were weak for inattention and moderate-to-strong for hyperactivity/impulsivity, with agreement consistent across development.

Conclusions:

• Despite weak to moderate correlations, parent and teacher ADHD ratings provide distinct and valuable clinical information.
• The 2-factor ADHD symptom structure is consistent across different reporters and developmental stages.
• Parent-teacher agreement on ADHD symptoms does not significantly change throughout development from ages 4 to 17.