New research has identified an association between childhood trauma and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been found to be probably significant predictors of many health conditions,” including ADHD, state the authors of a systematic review and meta-analysis, published in Brain and Behavior. The researchers examined 70 studies involving nearly 4 million participants.
ACEs are experiences that threaten a child’s bodily, familial, or social safety. They can include experiencing or witnessing violence, maltreatment, bullying, crime, or discrimination, or growing up in a household with parental separation, mental health issues, or economic insecurity.
“Our findings support the hypothesis that ACEs are associated with ADHD to a certain extent, especially for individuals who ever experienced multiple ACEs and females,” the study’s authors write.
Still, trauma can be difficult to diagnose and assess as a cause of ADHD, explains Maria Romaszkan in an ADHD Online article. “Screening tools for trauma are still scarcely used, and clinicians often rely on parents during ADHD assessments in children.”
“Adverse childhood experiences have been found to be probably significant predictors of many health conditions.”
That makes it hard to tell whether ACEs increase the probability of being diagnosed with ADHD, or if having ADHD puts someone at greater risk of experiencing childhood trauma, Romaszkan says. “It’s possible the association between ADHD and childhood trauma can go in either direction.”
This all highlights the need for trauma-informed therapeutic approaches for the treatment of ADHD, writes psychotherapist and author Kaytee Gillis, LCSW, in her blog, Invisible Bruises.
“With this increasing prevalence of ADHD diagnoses in our younger population, finding trauma-informed ways to support them is crucial,” she notes. “As a clinician and fellow survivor, I often wonder if earlier intervention could have helped my clients (and myself) minimize symptoms later in life.”
This article originally appeared as “The Trauma-ADHD Connections” in the January/February 2026 issue of Experience Life.
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