Characterizing the Learning-to-Drive Period for Teens with Attention Deficits

Abstract

Objective: Motor vehicle collisions are the leading cause of death among teenagers, accounting for approximately 1 in 3 deaths for this age group. A number of factors increase crash risk for teen drivers, including vulnerability to distraction, poor judgment, propensity to engage in risky driving behaviors, and inexperience. These factors may be of particular concern and exacerbated among teens learning to drive with attention deficits. To our knowledge, our study is among the first to systematically investigate the experiences of novice adolescent drivers with attention deficits during the learner period of a Graduated Drivers Licensing program. Method: Survey and on-road driving assessment (ODA) data were used to examine parent and teen confidence in the teens' driving ability, driving practice frequency, diversity of driving practice environments, and driving errors among teens with attention deficits as defined by attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis or parent-reported trouble staying focused (TSF). Results: When teens' driving skill was evaluated at the conclusion of the learner period, teens with ADHD exhibited more driving errors than their typically developing (TD) counterparts (p = 0.034). Teens with TSF were more likely to have their ODA terminated (p = 0.019), had marginally lower overall driving scores (p = 0.098), and exhibited more critical driving errors (p = 0.01) compared with TD teens. Conclusion: These findings may have implications on the learning-to-drive period for adolescents with attention deficits. Adjustments may need to be made to the learner period for teens with attention deficits to account for attention impairments and to better instill safe driving behavior.

Driving among Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

“…Teenagers with ADHD have almost four times as many traffic citations and car crashes than their typically-developing peers, and are seven times more likely to have a second crash [63]. Further, the relational strain often seen between teens with ADHD and their parents [65] may impact the learning-to-drive period, and reduce the quality of supervised, parental practice for these teens [66].…”

Advancing our understanding of cognitive development and motor vehicle crash risk: A multiverse representation analysis

“…Clearer, is the work with atypically developing youth. For example, atypically developing youth with deficits in executive functioning, such as those with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), are known to be at greater risk for crashing (Curry et al, 2017) and for aberrant driver behaviors compared to drivers without ADHD (Bishop et al, 2019;Fabiano et al, 2011). However, among the laboratory and experimental studies, methodological problems include heterogeneity in how executive functioning and driver behavior were assessed, reliance on cross-sectional designs that introduce temporal ambiguity, and small sample sizes that can produce unstable effect sizes.…”