The negative attribution processes of mothers of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Moms of kids with ADHD often blame the child’s character for problems; teach them to spot outside causes first.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Huang et al. (2014) asked moms to fill out a short survey.
One group had children with ADHD. The other group had typical children.
The survey measured how moms explain good and bad behavior.
What they found
Moms of kids with ADHD blamed the child’s inside traits for bad acts.
They said good acts happened only because of luck or the setting.
Moms of typical kids gave balanced reasons.
How this fits with other research
Dale et al. (2006) saw the same blame pattern in moms of kids with autism.
Martin et al. (2003) found that negative thinking, not just child behavior, drives most parental stress.
Higgins et al. (2021) showed high stress makes parents rate the same child behavior as worse.
Together these papers say: negative thoughts raise stress, and stress feeds more negative thoughts.
Why it matters
When you meet a mom who says “He never listens because he’s lazy,” pause. That single sentence signals a blame loop that can block your behavior plan. Add two minutes to your session: ask what else might explain the behavior. Coach her to list outside causes first. This tiny shift lowers stress and boosts follow-through on your interventions.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Start each parent meeting by asking for one external reason the child acted out before you review the data.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate the attribution processes of mothers regarding children's prosocial behaviors, inattention, and hyperactivity/impulsivity (symptoms of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD) using two paradigms. The first paradigm involved multidimensional attributions. The second paradigm concerned making attributions of children's identical behaviors based on information such as consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency. The participants were 64 mothers of children with ADHD (7-13 years old) and 64 mothers with typical/normal children (7-12 years old). The results showed that mothers of typical children exhibited positive attribution styles or person attributions whereas mothers of children with ADHD exhibited negative attribution styles. Mothers of children with ADHD tended to make personal attributions of children's negative behaviors (e.g., inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity; HI) but made situational attributions of prosocial behaviors. The results of this study can be used in future studies of the effects of intervention on children with ADHD or in studies related to neurophysiology.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.09.037