Infant Habituation Task Performance Is Associated With Familial Risk for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

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Objective: Habituation paradigms have been widely used with neurotypical infants, distinguishing short (vs long) looking as a signal of early individual differences in attention and learning efficiency. An objective task has yet to be identified linking potential early markers of risk for childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in infancy before formal identification of ADHD. Method: Infants 8 to 10 months of age from 2 cohort studies examining early signals of risk for ADHD completed 2 habituation tasks (with multimodal and unimodal stimuli). Latent growth mixture models were used to identify subclasses of looking times across 20 trials. Results: Participants were 147 infants (mean = 9 months, 52% male) at high (at least one parent with ADHD; n = 68) or low (neither parent with ADHD; n = 79) familial risk for ADHD. Three subclasses based on initial looking time and speed of habituation were identified for both tasks. Infants at familial risk for ADHD had significantly longer initial looking times to the multimodal task (z = −2.53, p = .01) and were 4.5 times more likely to fall into a long looker–slow to habituate subtype as opposed to the short looker subtype on the multimodal task (odds ratio = 4.5, p = .02). Conclusion: This study is the first to identify an objective task of infant attention and learning with performance associated with familial likelihood of childhood ADHD. Early identification of children who may develop ADHD is crucial to move toward development and implementation of preventive interventions to potentially reduce symptoms and impairment for children with ADHD. Plain language summary: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is common and associated with challenges beginning as early as preschool. This study examined whether a computer task could be used to identify infants who might later develop ADHD. The authors studied 147 infants, half with parents with ADHD. Infants who had less task-related attention and took longer to complete the task were more likely to have a parent with ADHD. These findings suggest that a computer task might help identify which infants could benefit from early interventions. Diversity & Inclusion Statement: We worked to ensure sex and gender balance in the recruitment of human participants. We worked to ensure race, ethnic, and/or other types of diversity in the recruitment of human participants. We worked to ensure that the study questionnaires were prepared in an inclusive way. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented sexual and/or gender groups in science.

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Heather M. Joseph, D., Anastasia N. Kerr-German, P., Jihui L. Diaz, P., Michelle A. Wilson, B., Erik Thiessen, P., & Brooke S.G. Molina, P. (2026). Infant Habituation Task Performance Is Associated With Familial Risk for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. JAACAP Open. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaacop.2026.06.003