This study examined whether girls and boys with ADHD show similar impairments in cognitive control from childhood into adolescence and the developmental relationship between cognitive control and ADHD symptoms. Participants include 8–17-year-old children with ADHD (n = 353, 104 girls) and typically developing (TD) controls (n = 241, 86 girls) with longitudinal data obtained from n = 137. Participants completed two go/no-go (GNG) tasks that varied in working memory demand. Linear mixed-effects models were applied to compare age-related changes in cognitive control for each GNG task among girls and boys with ADHD and TD controls and in relation to ADHD symptoms. Boys with ADHD showed impaired response inhibition and increased response variability across tasks. In contrast, girls with ADHD showed impaired response inhibition only with greater working memory demands whereas they displayed increased response variability regardless of working memory demands. Analysis of age-related change revealed that deficits in cognitive control under minimal working memory demands increase with age among girls with ADHD and decrease with age among boys with ADHD. In contrast, deficits in cognitive control with greater working memory demands decrease with age among both boys and girls with ADHD compared to TD peers. Among children with ADHD poor response inhibition during childhood predicted inattentive symptoms in adolescence and was associated with less age-related improvement in inattentive symptoms. These findings suggest that girls and boys with ADHD show differential impairment in cognitive control across development and response inhibition in childhood may be an important predictor of ADHD symptoms in adolescence.

这项研究检查了患有 ADHD 的女孩和男孩是否在从童年到青春期的认知控制方面表现出相似的障碍，以及认知控制与 ADHD 症状之间的发育关系。参与者包括患有 ADHD 的 8-17 岁儿童（n  = 353，104 名女孩）和典型的发育（TD）对照（n  = 241，86 名女孩），纵向数据来自n = 137. 参与者完成了两项工作记忆需求不同的 go/no-go (GNG) 任务。线性混合效应模型用于比较患有 ADHD 和 TD 控制的女孩和男孩中每项 GNG 任务的认知控制的年龄相关变化以及与 ADHD 症状的关系。患有多动症的男孩在任务中表现出反应抑制受损和反应变异性增加。相比之下，患有多动症的女孩只有在工作记忆需求增加时才会表现出反应抑制受损，而无论工作记忆需求如何，她们的反应变异性都会增加。对年龄相关变化的分析表明，在最小工作记忆需求下，认知控制缺陷在患有 ADHD 的女孩中随着年龄的增长而增加，而在患有 ADHD 的男孩中随着年龄的增长而降低。相比之下，与 TD 同龄人相比，患有 ADHD 的男孩和女孩的认知控制缺陷和更大的工作记忆需求随着年龄的增长而降低。在患有 ADHD 的儿童中，儿童期不良反应抑制可预测青春期注意力不集中的症状，并且与年龄相关的注意力不集中症状改善较少有关。这些研究结果表明，患有 ADHD 的女孩和男孩在发育和反应抑制方面表现出不同的认知控制障碍，这可能是青春期 ADHD 症状的重要预测因素。