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EEG and Cognitive Markers of Comorbid Dyslexia and ADHD

Poster Session F - Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Hailey Suttorp¹, Marc Joanisse¹; ¹University of Western Ontario

ADHD and reading disabilities (RD) are frequently comorbid in children. What underlies this comorbidity is unclear, but a shared underlying deficit that increases the likelihood of either disorder has been suggested. A variety of domain-general skills have been implicated, most commonly processing speed and working memory. This study addresses the uncertainty by drawing on children and adolescents from the Healthy Brain Network (HBN) biobank with RD (N = 101), ADHD (N = 533), both ADHD and RD (N = 80) and 404 typically developing controls. Groups were compared on processing speed, working memory, rapid naming and executive functioning tasks, as well as resting-state alpha-band EEG. The results do not support processing speed or working memory as a shared deficit between RD and ADHD. However, in the comorbid group, the presence of an RD, not ADHD, contributed most to a greater impairment across all cognitive assessments. Resting-state alpha-band EEG in eyes-closed or eyes-open trials failed to significantly distinguish between groups. Moreover, multinomial logistic regression used cognitive task scores and alpha power anterior-posterior difference scores to best predict classification to the RD, ADHD, ADHD+RD or control groups. Overall, group classification was primarily predicted by a set of common cognitive factors, as well as several distinct factors that jointly determine whether an individual shows ADHD, RD, both or neither.

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