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The article discusses the possibility that adult-onset attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be a distinct entity from conventional childhood ADHD. It suggests that the differences between both types of ADHD could be quantitative or qualitative. A study conducted with university students found that ADHD symptoms in childhood are related to poorer activation vigilance functioning, while symptoms in adulthood are related to poorer performance in executive vigilance. These preliminary findings support the idea that late-onset ADHD may be a distinct diagnostic category. It is suggested that further studies are needed to explore the etiology and practical approach to adult-onset ADHD. [Extracted from the article]

Attentional difficulties are a core axis in attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, establishing a consistent and detailed pattern of these neurocognitive alterations has not been an easy endeavour. Based on a dimensional approach to ADHD, the present study aims at comprehensively characterizing three key attentional domains: the three attentional networks (alerting, orienting, and executive attention), two components of vigilance (executive and arousal vigilance), and distraction. To do so, we modified a single, fine‐grained task (the ANTI‐Vea) by adding irrelevant distractors. One hundred and twenty undergraduates completed three self‐reports of ADHD symptoms in childhood and adulthood and performed the ANTI‐Vea. Despite the low reliability of some ANTI‐Vea indexes, the task worked successfully. While ADHD symptoms in childhood were related to alerting network and arousal vigilance, symptoms in adulthood were linked to executive vigilance. No association between ADHD symptom severity and executive attention and distraction was found. In general, our hypotheses about the relationships between ADHD symptoms and attentional processes were partially supported. We discuss our findings according to ADHD theories and attention measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]