This paper is an expert opinion piece with no sample of its own. It draws on three earlier sources. One is a Milwaukee study that followed hyperactive children into adulthood. Another compared adults with ADHD to clinical and community comparison groups. The third is a survey of 1,249 adults, ages 18 to 81, gathered as norms for a rating scale.
The author argued that emotional impulsiveness, and the poor emotional self-regulation that follows it, should count as a core feature of ADHD. He said an earlier review of his built this case on six lines of argument, including the history of the disorder, its brain anatomy and research findings. This article focuses on the history. It traces emotional problems through early descriptions of ADHD and notes they were left out of the diagnostic manual from DSM-II onward.
The author reported that these symptoms were more common in the ADHD groups than in the comparison groups. He said they were as common as the standard ADHD symptoms and helped predict impairment beyond the two usual symptom groups. In children with the C type of ADHD, he noted they make up three to four of the eight symptoms listed for oppositional defiant disorder. No effect sizes were reported.
The author said far less is known about poor emotional self-regulation than about emotional impulsiveness, with little evidence so far. He concluded these problems are part of the disorder itself and that future diagnostic criteria should list some of them, most likely under impulsivity.
Source: Barkley R. Why Emotional Impulsiveness Should Be a Central Feature of ADHD. The ADHD Report (2010). doi:10.1521/adhd.2010.18.4.1