Associations Between Longitudinal Teacher Ratings of Hyperactivity/ Inattention and Academic Achievement Over a Four Year Period

Aim of the present study was to investigate whether 4-years continuity of teacher rated hyperactivity and inattention symptoms were associated with lower academic performance in language, mathematics, and total grade average. Gender, age, fluid IQ, previous academic level, and teacher reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) total problems score at the first assessment were controlled in an urban low-middle-income-country setting. The follow-up sample with full SDQ data consisted of 967 students (boys: 523, 54.1%; girls: 444, 45.9%) from fifth to eight grades. Using cut-off 7 for SDQ Hyperactivity score for each assessment, the students were categorized into four groups: continued group (CG) (4.4%); declining group (DG) (6.9%); increasing group (IG) (9.0%); and consistently low (LG) group (79.6%). In the follow-up assessment, CG and IG had significantly higher SDQ scores when compared with both DG and LG and DG had significantly higher SDQ Hyperactivity and Total problems than LG. CG had significantly lower Mathematics, Language and Total average when compared with all other groups. IG and DG had significantly lower Mathematics, Language and Total average than LG. In regression analysis, odds ratios for CG students were between 5,1 to 7,4 for being in the lowest 25 percentile in all courses. These results imply that teacher reports of hyperactivity and inattention are significant predictors of academic failure, even when the symptoms are below threshold. Therefore, screening students for hyperactivity and inattention early and starting interventions early may be an effective policy to prevent academic failure.