Comparison of Fitness Performance Between Children With and Without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Background/Purpose: This study compared and examined the physical fitness levels of elementary-aged children with and without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). It was hypothesized that students with ADHD were much more active in their everyday lives, thus leading to having higher physical fitness levels than their peers.

Methods: The participants of this study included 51 elementary age students between the ages of 7 and 10. Participants received measures on seven test-items selected from the President's Physical Fitness Challenge given twice throughout the 2010-2011 school year; tests included the curl-up, push-up, pull-up, flexed-arm hang, sit-and-reach, endurance run, and shuttle run.

Analysis/Results: To examine difference between groups, simple multivariable analysis (MANOVA) and one variable analysis (ANOVA) were utilized to analyze the differences between students with and without ADHD throughout the seven test items. Results from these examinations showed very little difference between the two groups; children with ADHD (M_curl-up=31.56, M_push-up=27.26, M_{shuttle run}=13.1 and M_{endurance run}=4:54) and without ADHD (M_curl-up=27.62, M_push-up=16.73, M_{shuttle run}=13.24 and M_{endurance run}=5:27) demonstrated very similar outputs with very little variance.

Conclusions: Participants with ADHD perform equally with their normal developing peers on physical fitness assessments, demonstrating that ADHD has a limited effect on improving or decreasing physical fitness levels.