Schweitzer tested this in a study published in 2015. Her team recruited 44 kids between the ages of 10 and 17. Twenty-six of the volunteers had ADHD. The others had no diagnosed disorders. They served as a control group. All of the kids completed an attention task. Each sat at a computer and viewed rows of arrows. In each row, they had to quickly identify which way the central arrow was pointing. Meanwhile, the kids all wore a device on their ankles. It tracked their motion.
The researchers didn’t ask the kids to move or to stay still. The kids simply knew they were to complete the task. For those with ADHD, the more they moved, the better they performed. But the amount of movement didn’t make a difference for the control group.