ADHD in Children: Self-Reported Effort Drops on Cognitive Tasks Despite Similar Difficulty

A study of 80 children (38 with ADHD) found that those with ADHD report putting less effort on four cognitive tasks than neurotypical peers, even though they rate task difficulty as similar. This suggests subjective effort ratings provide unique metacognitive insight beyond performance scores, possibly reflecting Positive Illusory Bias. The research also shows effort and perceived difficulty are distinct processes, and performance is not closely tied to effort. Limitations include a mostly male ADHD sample and a single end-of-task rating; future work could track effort during tasks to better capture fluctuations.