Age-related alterations in early and late auditory processing in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity...

This study investigated age-related differences in auditory detection and attentional processing in school-aged children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared to typically developing (TD) peers, focusing on mismatch negativity (MMN), P3a, and P3b components. Participants were children aged 7-12 years with ADHD (N = 80; 12.0% female) and age-matched TD children (N = 80; 26.3% female). All children completed a three-stimulus auditory oddball task with unilateral presentation of standard, nontarget deviant, and target deviant tones while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Compared with the steady increase in MMN amplitudes observed in TD children, children with ADHD showed reduced MMN amplitudes at ages 9-12 years and a U-shaped MMN age-related pattern. In TD children, more negative MMN amplitudes were associated with faster responses on hit trials. In contrast, children with ADHD showed reduced P3a amplitude at ages 7-8 years, and their P3b latency was significantly associated with behavioral performance. Our findings suggest that children with ADHD may rely more on late-stage cognitive processing to complete auditory attention tasks, whereas TD children benefit from more efficient early perceptual and involuntary attention mechanisms. Altered age-related differences across MMN, P3a, and P3b highlight disruptions in the development of auditory attention systems and may represent candidate neural indices that warrant further evaluation in longitudinal and intervention studies.