Schedule of Events | Symposia

EEG and cognitive markers of dyslexia and ADHD

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Hailey Suttorp¹, Marc Joanisse¹; ¹University of Western Ontario

ADHD and reading difficulties (RD) are frequently comorbid in children. What underlies this comorbidity is unclear, but a shared underlying deficit that increases the likelihood of either disorder has been suggested. A range of domain-general cognitive skills have been implicated, commonly processing speed and working memory. In this study, we aimed to address this uncertainty, drawing on children and adolescents from the HBN biobank with RD (N=101), ADHD (N=533), both ADHD and RD (N=80), and 404 typically developing controls. Groups were evaluated on processing speed, working memory, naming speed, and executive functions, as well as resting-state alpha power measured with eyes-open and eyes-closed EEG. Individuals with RD showed greater impairment on all 10 cognitive assessments, with comorbid ADHD and RD children showing significantly greater impairment on processing speed and executive functioning measures. Within-group comparisons revealed significantly greater relative alpha power in posterior, compared to anterior electrode sites for ADHD, RD, and comorbid groups in eyes-closed trials. This difference was not observed in RD and comorbid groups in eyes-open trials, however it remained for the ADHD group, as well as became significant for controls. These results indicate that relative alpha power is primarily distributed in posterior electrode sites in attention and reading impaired children especially for eyes-closed resting state trials. Additionally, while RD, and not ADHD, contributes to greater impairment in domain-general cognitive skills, impaired processing speed and executive functioning are candidates for an underlying shared deficit in comorbid ADHD and RD.

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