Examining the roles of working memory and trait anxiety on math achievement in children with ADHD

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) demonstrate deficits across academic domains including underachievement in math. Proposed models of math skill development suggest that math difficulties may be associated with both neurocognitive (e.g., working memory) and socioemotional factors (e.g., anxiety). Extant literature indicates a 25% co-occurrence rate between ADHD and anxiety, as well as a strong link between neurocognitive deficits in working memory and ADHD symptomology. However, it remains unclear how both trait anxiety and working memory uniquely or jointly relate to underachievement in math in children with ADHD.

The sample comprised 275 clinically evaluated children ages 8-13 (Myears = 10.36, SD = 1.44; 106 girls; 69% White/non-Hispanic) with and without ADHD. Serial conditional effects models were utilized to (a) quantify the magnitude of math underachievement in children with ADHD relative to peers without ADHD and (b) determine the extent to which these impairments are uniquely or jointly related to child self-reported trait anxiety and/or working memory abilities.

The serial path analysis indicated that children with ADHD exhibited large magnitude deficits in math achievement relative to peers without ADHD (d = -0.76; β = -.34, 95% CI excludes 0.0). Furthermore, the ADHD/math achievement relation was uniquely accounted for by its shared association with working memory, whereas self-reported trait anxiety was not a significant predictor of math achievement. Together, ADHD status and working memory accounted for 65% of the variance in math achievement (R2 = .65).

These findings suggest that math difficulties in children with ADHD are largely associated with neurocognitive factors such as working memory and do not appear to be associated with the frequency/severity of trait anxiety symptoms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).