Abstract:
Research has identified friendship and friendship quality as important variables in predicting positive outcomes concurrently and longitudinally for children and adolescents. This work has identified friendship as a developmental construct that changes over time; however, not all children develop these abilities at the same rate, and some children struggle in navigating the social world. In particular, children with ADHD present with difficulty obtaining and maintaining friendships beginning in childhood and extending through young adulthood. Current literature has identified these difficulties but has yet to examine how friendship stability and quality may change over time for children with ADHD symptoms. The present study sought to explore the stability of friendships over time and the growth of friendship quality over time. In particular, we were interested in how the presence of ADHD symptoms predicts both friendship stability and friendship quality over time. It was hypothesized that children with more ADHD symptoms would show less friendship stability over time and a slower rate of development of friendship quality over time relative to children with fewer ADHD symptoms. ADHD symptoms were not a significant predictor of friendship social support over time, but they were a significant predictor of friendship negative interactions over time.
