Predictive capacity of the Spanish Neuropsychological Assessment of Executive Functions battery when diagnosing child ADHD

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is considered to be one of the most common disorders during children and adolescents' neurodevelopment. Given how much the individuals executive functions are affected, the objective of the present study was to verify the validity of the Neuropsychological Assessment of Executive Functions battery for Children (ENFEN for its acronym in Spanish) as a predictor in the diagnosis of ADHD. The sample consisted of 175 participants from southeast Spain of both sexes aged between 6 and 12 (clinical M=8.39, SD=1.87, and control M=8.78, SD=1.91). The clinical group was composed of 89 (79.50%) males and 23 (20.50%) females, and the control group consisted of 37 (58.70%) males and 26 (41.30%) females. ENFEN is an individual applications battery that allows the executive functions to be globally evaluated using a wide range of elements. We followed a non-experimental research design for this comparative descriptive study. The results indicate that the phonological fluency, colour naming path, and interference scales are closely associated with the diagnosis of ADHD as they provide data on elements including inhibition, mental flexibility, sustained and selective attention, verbal fluency, and working memory. In general, this study supports the usefulness and validity of the ENFEN battery as a tool to clinically diagnose ADHD.