Few girls with childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder show positive adjustment during adolescence.

Employing data from 140 prospectively followed girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and 88 age- and ethnicity-matched comparison girls, we adopted a person-centered analytic approach to assess rates of adolescent positive adjustment (PA) across six domains: ADHD symptoms, externalizing symptoms, internalizing symptoms, social skills, peer acceptance, and school achievement. During adolescence, between 19.8% and 61.1% of the girls with childhood ADHD met criteria for PA when the six domains were considered independently. A total of 16.4% of the ADHD sample showed PA in at least five of six domains, versus 86.4% of the comparison girls. Results were similar when PA was examined excluding the ADHD symptom domain. Most girls did not "grow out of" the symptoms and impairments related to their ADHD.