- The neural structures underlying executive functioning are among the latest to mature, which means that most college students spend the majority of their time in college with an executive system under construction.
 - A key process in this maturation, myelination, is the process in which the neural axons are encased with a fatty sheath that facilitates their speed of neural impulse transmitting. Until this process of myelination is complete, emerging adults are more vulnerable to errors in self-regulation, especially when the task demands are high, which is exactly what is happening to college students with ADHD.

Colby College

The transition from adolescence to adulthood involves important biological and sociological changes. For students with ADHD, such changes may impose a "double deficit" on them in response inhibition, long-term reward motivation, and self-regulation. This provides explanations on why college students with ADHD is a special group of subjects to study and what psychological treatment may be the most efficient for this population.


ADHD in College Students: Developmental Context for ADHD in College

Fleming, A. P., & McMahon, R. J. (2012). Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 15(4), 303-329. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-012-0121-z 

Developmental Context and Treatment Principles for ADHD Among College Students 

Executive Function Development

 - MRI results indicate that myelination of the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) continues throughout the early twenties. The DLPFCi s particularly involved in response inhibition and planning—core areas of executive functioning deficit among many individuals with ADHD.
 - Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) data showed that myelination of the frontostriatal circuit continue to improve through the age of 21 in tasks involving response inhibition, interference control, set shifting,  and working memory.
 - All the tasks described above are part of the impaired areas of the "cool" executive functions of ADHD. The late maturation of brain tissues related to them implies a developing and immature stage of such functions among college students with ADHD.

"Cool" Executive Functions

 - Neuroimaging research suggests that adolescents show greater activity than adults in the nucleus accumbens, a brain area related to difficulty in inhibition and responses to delayed rewards. However, more researches using fine scientific strategies such as the C-DT behavioral paradigm should be conducted with emerging adults as participants to figure out the relationship between this area and ADHD among college students.
 - Questionnaire-based investigations have suggested that the development of long-term reward motivation and the ability to plan and anticipate for future events may continue throughout emerging adulthood.
 - Further behavioral and neuroimaging research using active reward contingencies is needed in order to better understand the maturation of delay aversion throughout emerging adulthood.


"Hot" Executive Functions

 - Researches have shown that socio-emotional context plays a powerful role in decision-making processes among adolescents and emerging adults. Under contexts of high socio-emotional arousal (i.e.peer existence), the executive function system of adolescents and emerging adults may be overwhelmed by their motivational (reward-seeking) system.
 - This may lead to a decreased ability in making reward-related decisions and regulating behavior in high-demand contexts.
 - With the high degree of social interacted needed in most college settings, the effects of such socio-emotional contexts becomes particularly profound. For those with ADHD, this brings another difficulty for them to cope with college life and study, both of which require high level of decision-making and self-regulating abilities.

Socio-Emotional Context 

 - For most students who experience the shift into emerging adulthood during their college, this experience brings the a marked loss of parental supervision and structure, and a corresponding dramatic increase in independence in academic work, social activity, substance use, and daily life rhythms. This new environment demand high organizational skills and long-term planning, while at the same time provides more immediate, short-term rewards. Thus, executive demands increase just as contextual support for effective executive control decreases.
 - For college students with ADHD, these increased demands on executive control occur at a time of ‘‘double deficit’’ in self-regulation. 
 - First, individuals with ADHD tend to have poorer executive functioning and a stronger aversion to delay in reward than those without ADHD.
 - Second, their executive functioning and motivational systems are not yet fully mature and are particularly susceptible to the effect of high socio-emotional arousal.
 - Thus, college students with ADHD are more susceptible to executive failures in college than their peers do. This gives the implication that effective intervention for ADHD among college students must lean more heavily on moderating the self-regulation demands of the environment, including increasing external support and decreasing challenging contextual factors.

Learn Before

Related