School-aged children with ADHD symptoms should be monitored — regardless of whether they meet diagnostic criteria for the disorder — to mitigate the risk of later functional impairment, researchers say.

A team, led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, has identified that ADHD symptoms at age seven predict poorer academic performance and social functioning at age 10.

The study followed 477 children from the Children’s Attention Project in Melbourne over three years from the age of seven, tracking their performances compared with peers without ADHD.

The cohort included 179 children who met the diagnostic criteria for full ADHD syndrome, 86 ‘subthreshold’ children who had symptoms but did not meet the full criteria, and 212 children with no ADHD symptoms.