Young Adult Outcomes of Children with Hyperactivity: Leisure, financial, and social activities

Abstract

This study reports on the leisure time, financial, gambling, and social activities of a large sample of children with hyperactivity (H group, N = 149) and children who served as a control group (CC group, N = 72) from the Southeastern Wisconsin (Milwaukee) region tracked for 13–15 years to young adulthood (ages 19–25, M = 20 years). Participant interviews were used to gather information on the amount of time they spent in various leisure activities, the amount of their monthly earnings and the proportion they spent on various expenses, and their gambling activities and amounts they expended in those activities. The results revealed that the H group spent significantly more hours engaged in watching television, listening to music, socialising on the telephone, and engaging in their hobbies relative to the control group. While the H group at this early stage of adulthood was earning more monthly income, no differences were found in the proportion of that income being spent on various categories of monthly expenditures except that the CC group paid a larger percentage of their income to credit card bills. This difference probably stems from more of the CC group having credit cards than the H group. Few group differences emerged in the specific kinds of gambling activities examined. Few group differences were evident in the closeness of family relationships as children, or currently, or in the number of social or dating relationships they enjoyed in high school or currently. The H group, however, had a lower quality of current dating relationships, fewer current close friends, more trouble keeping friends, and were more likely to argue with friends than those in the CC group. Findings also revealed that more of the H group had experienced going without food or shelter (homelessness) due to a lack of money since leaving high school, intimating that a subset of the H group may be having greater problems with adult self‐sufficiency than those in the CC group.