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REVIEW article

Front. Dev. Psychol.
Sec. Social and Emotional Development
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fdpys.2024.1390791
This article is part of the Research Topic The Importance of Peers: Making the Most of Peer Relationships in Childhood and Adolescence View all 7 articles

Why can't we be friends? A Narrative Review of the Challenges of Making and Keeping Friends for Children and Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This narrative review explores the friendship characteristics of children and adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Previous literature on ADHD has focused on attentional, academic, and behavioural challenges. Social impairment and peer relationships in children and adolescents with ADHD have been recognized as a critical area of research. Adolescents with ADHD frequently experience clinically significant and impairing social and friendship difficulties. Despite the immense research on factors that contribute to why children and adolescents with ADHD have difficulty making and keeping friends and why friendship is especially important for youth with ADHD, to date, it has not been synthesized in a way that is comprehensive to our understanding. In this review, friendship, friendship formation, the benefits of friendship, and the features of friendship (i.e., friendship quality and stability) will be discussed. Second, the magnitude of friendship challenges faced by children and adolescents with ADHD, as well as the impact these peer difficulties have on friendship quality and stability, will be presented. Next, the dominant conceptualisation of why children and adolescents with ADHD struggle to make and keep friends, which focuses on factors such as ADHD symptomatology, executive functioning, social cognition, and emotion regulation, is reported. This review will conclude with suggestions for future research and interventions that may be beneficial for ameliorating friendship difficulties among children and adolescents with ADHD.

    Keywords: Friendship, Social Skills, adolescents, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Friendship quality

    Received: 23 Feb 2024; Accepted: 12 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Neprily, Climie, McCrimmon and Makarenko. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Kirsten M Neprily, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
    Emma A. Climie, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.