Mentor: Aaron M. Luebbe, Ph.D.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and internalizing disorders (e.g., anxiety, depression) frequently co-occur in youth. Adolescents with both ADHD and internalizing symptoms tend to report distinct parenting behaviors more frequently than those without comorbid symptoms. Youth with elevated ADHD and internalizing symptoms often report low parental warmth and heightened psychological control. This study examines the relationship between adolescents’ internalizing symptoms and low parental warmth as well as heightened psychological control, and whether adolescents’ ADHD symptoms exacerbate these relationships. 103 mothers of adolescents from local middle and high schools completed the acceptance (warmth) subscale of the Children’s Report of Parent Behavior to capture perceptions of their parental warmth and the Psychological Control Scale to assess perceptions of their parental psychological control. Mothers reported adolescents’ internalizing and ADHD symptoms using the Child Behavior Checklist. Multiple regression analyses examined relationships between adolescents’ comorbid symptoms (internalizing and ADHD) and mothers’ perceptions of parental warmth and psychological control (i.e., the interaction between ADHD and internalizing symptoms). Findings show that there was no significant moderating effect of ADHD symptoms on the relation between internalizing symptoms and maternal warmth, though there was a significant main effect of internalizing symptoms on maternal warmth. ADHD symptoms did moderate the relation of internalizing symptoms on maternal psychological control; Internalizing symptoms were positively associated with psychological control, but only at high levels of ADHD symptoms. Regarding our first hypothesis, findings indicate that higher internalizing symptoms were associated with lower parental warmth over and above the effects of ADHD symptoms. While concerning, one silver lining may be that comorbid ADHD symptoms do not seem to exacerbate this relation. Our second hypothesis was supported such that ADHD symptoms moderated the relation of internalizing symptoms to psychological control, but only at heightened levels of ADHD symptoms. Future research may benefit from examining other parenting behaviors (e.g., behavioral control) that may be impacted by comorbidity.

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