Research recap with Skye: Executive Dysfunction and Early ADHD in Preschoolers

Welcome to Hacking your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I'm joined by Skye Waterson for our Research Recap series.

In this series, we take a look at a single research paper, dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try to find any key practical takeaways—stuff that you can actually use.

In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Do Executive Dysfunction, Delay Aversion and Time Perception Deficits Predict ADHD Symptoms and Early Academic Performance in Preschoolers.

And yeah, there's a lot in there, but don’t worry, we’ll be getting into all of it.

Before we get started, I want to mention that this is still a new series, so we’re going to be figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and I’d love to hear what you all think of it. So if you have thoughts, head on over to hackingyouradhd.com/contact and let me know. I appreciate all the feedback I’ve already gotten, and we’re definitely going to be working on organizing the episodes a little bit more to help you get the most out of every one. New episodes of Research Recap will be coming out every other Friday. And with that, let’s get into it.

https://tinyurl.com/56rvt9fr - Unconventional Organisation Affiliate link

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https://www.patreon.com/HackingYourADHD - Patreon

Skye Waterson: The paper we’re looking at today is about time perception and long-term academic performance. But really importantly, it’s about that in preschoolers—four to five year olds. What they found was that children with ADHD are commonly observed to have learning difficulties. They talk about things like dyscalculia, which I have, so I definitely related to that.

They wanted to look at how three neuropsychological constructs—executive dysfunction, delay aversion, and time perception—were associated with ADHD symptoms and academic performance in preschoolers at risk of ADHD.

This study was conducted in Hong Kong. They measured at different time periods, and what they found was interesting in terms of the relationship between working memory, time blindness, and potentially academic performance.

William Curb: And it is very interesting, especially when we remember these are four to five year olds. Doing ADHD assessment is very difficult at that age. The first thing we should really discuss here is how they are measuring ADHD, which in this case was just a teacher-parent questionnaire. That’s often the first step in a diagnosis, but in this study, that’s where it stopped.

Skye Waterson: Right—it’s symptoms, not diagnostic ADHD.

William Curb: Exactly. Because what’s the difference between a 4-year-old with ADHD who can’t sit still and a 4-year-old without ADHD who can’t sit still? It can be hard to define. Typically, we don’t see many children at that age formally diagnosed. But it is an age where parents and teachers start noticing differences in performance—socially, emotionally, etc.—so it’s still important to monitor.

William Curb: Continuing with the measurements, academic performance was based on standardized early literacy and number tests. Obviously Chinese literacy since this was in Hong Kong. Four-year-olds may vary widely, and many do catch up later. But the study still looked at those connections.

Skye Waterson: So how did they test these preschoolers?

William Curb: For executive function, they tested working memory. For delay aversion, they used a computer game where the child could choose an immediate reward or wait for a delayed, larger reward—similar to the marshmallow test. They also had a delay frustration task where the computer would slow down, frustrating the child.

Skye Waterson: Exactly. And then they had the time tasks: time reproduction and time discrimination. These were newer measures. For example, in the reproduction task, a child saw a light on screen for a certain duration and then had to reproduce that same duration by pressing a button.

William Curb: I would love to see control versus ADHD on that one.

Skye Waterson: Previous research has shown some differences, though sometimes small. In the time discrimination task, they played tones of different lengths and asked the child to identify the odd one. Some were easy, some harder. What made this paper different was connecting these measures to academic performance.

William Curb: Yes, and I’d love to see this in older kids too, because time blindness affects test-taking. Without a good sense of time, you might rush or mismanage pacing.

Skye Waterson: Exactly. Before the results, I’ll just say if you want an annotated copy of the paper, you can DM me “Time” at Unconventional Organization on Instagram.

So what did they find?

William Curb: They found that all three factors—executive dysfunction, delay aversion, and time perception—predicted academic success, but working memory was the strongest predictor. Time perception and delay aversion had links but were weaker.

Skye Waterson: They also controlled for family socioeconomic status and general ability. Even then, working memory and time perception contributed to children’s academic performance in both literacy and numeracy. Specifically, Chinese word reading required greater working memory than English reading, which was interesting.

William Curb: That makes sense. And it highlights how time perception might indirectly impact performance—like thinking you don’t have time to finish, so you rush.

Skye Waterson: Yes. Other studies also found that children with developmental dyscalculia perform more poorly in time processing. So there seems to be a connection between time blindness and difficulties in math or literacy.

William Curb: While this is a good starting study, we really need to test older groups and try interventions—like timers, time estimation practice, or visual clocks—to see if they improve outcomes.

Skye Waterson: Exactly. Sadly, intervention studies are rarer, but they’re what’s most useful. Strategies like externalizing time, using visual timers, or having multiple clocks can be helpful. Alarms don’t always work, because if your perception of time is skewed, you’ll still misjudge.

William Curb: I’ve definitely had that experience—thinking a task would take forever, then realizing only seconds passed.

Skye Waterson: Right, and maybe also accepting that struggles with time could have affected academic performance. For example, in exams, many of us rushed because we felt we were running out of time. That may have been ADHD-related.

William Curb: Yes, and that carries into work performance too. Misjudging time can make us rush or do lower-quality work.

Skye Waterson: And if you need help with strategies, you can always DM me. There are solutions, even if they don’t always show up in the academic literature. That’s why we share this research and bring in practical strategies too.