Category: ADHD - Child
Julia McQuade, Ph.D.
Amherst College
Amherst, Massachusetts
Katherine Dixon-Gordon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA
Dara Babinski, ABPP, Ph.D.
Penn State College of Medicine
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Julia McQuade, Ph.D.
Amherst College
Amherst, Massachusetts
Jessica Peters, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Assistant Professor
Brown University
Providence, Rhode Island
Rosanna Breaux, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia
There is high comorbidity between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD), with an estimated 14% of youth with ADHD developing co-morbid BPD later in life (Akça et al., 2020; Matthies & Philipsen 2014). Childhood ADHD may serve as a developmental precursor to BPD or may promote secondary challenges, such as problematic interpersonal relationships or negative emotionality, that then potentiate risk for BPD (e.g., Crowell et al., 2009; Xenaki & Pehlivanidis, 2015). Although BPD is typically not diagnosed until later adolescence or adulthood (APA, 2013), mounting evidence suggests that features of the disorder can first emerge in childhood (e.g., Babinski et al., 2021), underscoring a need to study ADHD and BPD co-occurrence across development. Yet there has been a surprising lack of research in child or adolescent samples that examines the co-occurrence of ADHD and BPD. The lag in understanding of BPD risk specifically for youth with ADHD may stem, in part, from the fact that females have been historically underrepresented in ADHD research (Chronis-Toscano, 2021) and BPD is a disorder that is disproportionately diagnosed in females (APA, 2013). In addition, developmental differences in the timing of an ADHD diagnosis (i.e., usually in childhood) and a BPD diagnosis (i.e., in later adolescence or adulthood) have have limited collaboration across researchers that study each disorder. Given that BPD is associated with significant personal, economic, and societal costs (Hastrup et al., 2019), with 10% of individuals dying by suicide (Black et al. 2004), identifying markers of risk and effective treatments across development is of critical importance.
The goal of this symposium is advance our limited understanding of the predictors, impairments, and potential treatment targets for co-occurring ADHD and BPD in youth. Members of the symposium include both ADHD and BPD researchers, bringing together perspectives from both fields of study. Talks include data from a range of mixed-sex youth samples. The first talk uses a nationally representative child sample and identifies unique associations of BPD and ADHD symptoms with domains of impairment. The second talk uses a longitudinal sample of youth with and without ADHD followed from childhood to adolescence and identifies social and emotional vulnerabilities that incrementally predict risk for adolescent BPD features. The third talk uses an adolescent inpatient sample and identifies specific impairments that differentiate suicidal adolescents with ADHD, BPD, and comorbid ADHD and BPD. The fourth talk reports promising results suggesting that an intervention targeting emotion dysregulation and interpersonal functioning can reduce BPD features in adolescents with ADHD. Together talks advance our understanding of the vulnerabilities and impairments associated with ADHD and BPD co-occurrence in youth; future directions in research and potential targets for prevention and treatment will be discussed.
Presenter: Dara Babinski, ABPP, Ph.D. – Penn State College of Medicine
Co-author: Daniel Waschbush, Ph.D – Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Penn State College of Medicine
Presenter: Julia D. McQuade, Ph.D. – Amherst College
Presenter: Jessica R. Peters, Ph.D. – Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Co-author: Shirley Yen, Ph.D. – Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Presenter: Rosanna Breaux, Ph.D. – Virginia Tech
Co-author: Annah R. Cash, BS – Virginia Tech
Co-author: Elizabeth A. DeLucia, MS – Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Co-author: Katelyn Garcia, PhD – Virginia Tech
Co-author: Delshad Shroff, MA – Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Co-author: Courtney Swanson, M.S. – Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University