Midterm grades arrive this month, and some of the most confusing ones belong to students who have never been diagnosed with anything. A study published online October 14 tested 71 emerging adults ages 18 to 24 and found that those with ADHD symptoms showed measurable differences in working memory and in stopping a response once it had started (Waring, Hase, Price & Garner, 2026).
What Did the New Study Find?
The research team, writing in Psychological Reports, gave 71 emerging adults a set of computerized tasks. The tasks measured four executive functions: working memory, response inhibition, set shifting, and sustained attention. Participants also completed questionnaires about ADHD symptoms and about cognitive disengagement.
Two results stood out. On a working-memory task, participants with ADHD symptoms made more false alarms, responding to a match that was not there. On a stop-signal task, they failed to stop more often once a response was underway. The authors conclude that working memory and unsuccessful stopping distinguish ADHD in this age group.
The study looked at symptoms rather than diagnoses. The authors write that young adults with ADHD symptoms, including those without a clinical diagnosis, may benefit from working memory support.
Why Is "No Diagnosis" Not the Same as "No Problem"?
Many parents assume the question is binary. Either your student has ADHD and needs support, or your student does not and simply needs to try harder. The research does not draw the line that cleanly.
A 2022 consensus statement from the UK Adult ADHD Network notes that some university students present with subthreshold symptoms, just below the threshold for a diagnosis, yet appear significantly impaired by them and need additional support (UK Adult ADHD Network, 2022). CHADD explains the other side of that line. A person can show a number of ADHD symptoms without meeting the criteria for the disorder, because a diagnosis also requires significant impairment (CHADD).
In practice, the pattern is familiar. Your student understood the lecture and still missed the problem set mentioned once at the end of class. The reading was opened three times and never finished. None of that needs a label to be real.
It is not laziness. It is a skill gap, and skill gaps can be named and practiced.
What Is Cognitive Disengagement, and Why Was It Measured?
The study also measured symptoms of cognitive disengagement syndrome. If the term is new to you, that is because it is new. A 2023 report from an international work group of researchers selected "cognitive disengagement syndrome" to replace the older name, sluggish cognitive tempo (Work Group on Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, 2023). The same report notes that early studies of undergraduates suggest these symptoms are uniquely associated with functional impairment.
In the new study, cognitive disengagement symptoms predicted more working-memory false alarms, separate from how severe a participant's inattention was. That fits earlier college research. A 2017 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology surveyed 158 undergraduates. It found these symptoms remained linked to poorer study skills, more daily-life executive-function deficits, and greater impairment, even after accounting for symptoms of ADHD, anxiety, and depression (Flannery et al., 2017).
For parents, the takeaway is modest. A student who seems far away during homework may be dealing with something researchers can now measure and name. Naming it is a job for a qualified clinician, not for a parent reading research at night.
Should Your Student Be Evaluated?
If a pattern has lasted longer than one rough month, an evaluation can answer questions that guessing cannot. CHADD is clear that ADHD cannot be diagnosed accurately from brief office observations or simply by talking to the person. A diagnostician needs a thorough history, and a parent or other family member can help fill in gaps a young adult may downplay.
There is also a practical reason to act early. The U.S. Department of Education explains that colleges may require documentation of a current disability before providing academic adjustments. It also notes that neither a high school nor a college is required to conduct or pay for a new evaluation. Our post on the accommodations deadline that catches most families off guard walks through how that documentation works.
How you raise the subject matters as much as when. Our guide to telling your student you think they need a coach offers an approach that fits this conversation too. Choose a calm moment, and lead with what you have noticed rather than with a conclusion.
Notice Patterns, Not Labels
You cannot measure working memory at the kitchen table. You can notice everyday patterns worth describing to a clinician or a coach:
Forgotten details, not forgotten classes. Your student attends every lecture, but the changed due date never makes it onto a list.
Fast starts, avoidable errors. Answers come quickly, and points disappear to misread directions.
Plans that dissolve. A two-hour study block turns into something else within ten minutes.
Long stretches of looking busy. The laptop is open at 11 p.m., and the document is still blank.
None of these signs is a diagnosis, and none is a character flaw. Each one points to a skill that responds to structure.
Why This Ties to Executive Function
Working memory and response inhibition sit underneath the executive skills college asks for every day. Planning depends on holding the week in mind long enough to map it. Organization and time management depend on catching a changed deadline before it slips away. Self-regulation depends on pausing before a quick answer or a new browser tab. Task initiation depends on getting from an open laptop to a first sentence. Self-monitoring, the habit of checking work against the instructions, is what catches a false alarm before it costs points. When those underlying capacities are less reliable, a student does better with external systems: one calendar, written checklists, and routines that do not depend on remembering. The UK Adult ADHD Network lists academic coaching among the supports for disorganization and last-minute work, and these systems can be built whether or not a diagnosis ever arrives.
How Coaching Helps
Our coaches do not diagnose, and coaching does not replace an evaluation, a physician, or a therapist. What we provide is the weekly structure that working-memory lapses tend to erode. Your student meets virtually with the same dedicated coach every week. Together they move every syllabus into one calendar, turn a vague assignment into a written first step with a date, and review what slipped last week without judgment. Coaches follow up by text and email between sessions, and you receive weekly updates, so you can step out of the monitoring role and still know how the semester is going. We have coached thousands of students since 2009. If you are weighing coaching against what campus offers, our post on choosing between a private coach and campus resources can help you sort out the difference.
Read about College Success Coaching, one-on-one virtual coaching that meets your student every week. Schedule a free consultation to talk through what your student needs this semester.