Children who have higher or increasing levels of inattentiveness at the age of 7 are more likely to perform poorly on their high school final exams, according to a recent study.

Researchers at the Universities of Nottingham and Bristol found that for every one-point increase in inattention symptoms at age 7 there was a a two to three point reduction in their GCSE examinations and a 6 to 7 percent increased likelihood of not achieving a minimum level of "good" GCSE grades (A to C) at age 16.

"Teachers and parent should be aware of the long-term academic impact of behaviors such as inattention and distractibility," Kapil Sayal, who led the study, said in a statement.

For the study, parents and teachers completed detailed questionnaires when the children participating in the study, more than 11,000,  were 7 years old to assess a variety of different behaviors including inattention, hyperactivitiy/impulsivity and oppositional/defiant problems. This data was compared with the children's academic achievements by looking at their GCSE results at age 16.

They found that the relationship between inattentiveness at age 7 and GCSE scores were linear - each one-point increase in inattention symptoms increased the risk of worse academic outcomes across the full rance of inattention scores in the sample.

The findings are detailed in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.