An article by Assistant Professor of Psychology Tara McKee was published in the May issue of the Journal of Attention Disorders which was a special issue focused on ADHD in adults. The paper was titled "Comparison of a Norm-Based Versus Criterion-Based Approach to Measuring ADHD Symptomatology in College Students." McKee studied self-reported ADHD symptomatology in college students using the College ADHD Response Evaluation. Her findings suggested that rates of ADHD symptomatology are higher when college students are compared to their peers which has implications for using current diagnostic criteria with this population.
The data suggests that researchers can't solely rely on the current DSM-IV criteria when trying to diagnose this population. Those criteria were created to best distinguish school-age children with ADHD from those without the disorder. The paper concluded that because symptoms will be different in young adults and the degree of impairment needed to be considered extreme compared to one's peer group will vary as well, more appropriate criteria for diagnosis in this population needs to be developed.
