ADHD glossary · Family perspectives
Delay discounting: read the timing question without labeling a person
The National Library of Medicine's delay-discounting scope note includes the tendency for an outcome to be valued less as the wait for it increases. [1]
General education and practical perspectives. Editorial standards.
Our focus is that timing aspect of the research vocabulary. This page is not a test of patience, an explanation of someone's spending, or evidence of a condition. We do not use one choice to label a child, partner, or parent as impulsive.
A shorter session now or a longer one later
Imagine this fictional choice: a community art room has space for a short poster-making session this evening or a longer session next Saturday. Morgan prefers this evening. Their partner prefers Saturday and starts to describe Morgan's choice as “not being willing to wait.”
Morgan says they have another commitment next Saturday. The partner had not known that. The choices differed in more than waiting time for Morgan, even though the partner initially described them as “a little now or more later.”
This is an invented illustration of a question to check, not a research task or a finding. No amount of discounting is calculated. We are not claiming that a particular preference is wiser, healthier, or characteristic of ADHD.
First, identify what actually differs
When reading a description of a study, ask what the alternatives involved. You might look for the outcome, the timing, and what else participants were told. Keep unknown details unknown instead of filling them from an everyday story.
For the art-room conversation, our optional questions are more ordinary:
- Are both sessions genuinely available to the person?
- What does each person want from the activity?
- What other commitments have they chosen to mention?
- Are they being asked for a preference or being told a decision?
These questions are not a measurement procedure. Do not turn them into repeated offers designed to test how long a child will wait. Leave private calendar details out of the conversation if the person does not want to share them; ask which options they want to consider.
A term is not a complete explanation
In this glossary, decision-making covers comparing and choosing among alternatives. Motivation addresses the attributed term and the person's stated reasons. Delay discounting has the narrower timing-and-value question described above.
Keep that boundary when the phrase appears in an article. A statement about a research pattern is not permission for Ready to infer the cause of a particular household choice. This page supplies neither a numerical cutoff nor a decision rule for accepting or rejecting an offer.
The source's full scope note includes additional research and measurement language. We have not adopted its assessment applications or turned them into instructions for readers.
Listen to the person with the different preference
A teen can say that a future option does not work for them without being called short-sighted. A parent can explain the actual choices without promising something they cannot provide. Partners can discover that they have been comparing different practical situations rather than different amounts of virtue.
No rewards should be withheld for the purpose of trying this page out. The useful next step is a precise question about what the compared options really are, with room for the answer to change the conversation.
Source
[1] National Library of Medicine. Delay Discounting MeSH Descriptor Data 2026. Last updated 2016-02-26; accessed September 5, 2026. Scope Note supports [1] only in its temporal-delay aspect. Controlled-vocabulary terminology, not evidence for the fictional example or a personal assessment.
Related guides
Sources and what they support
These sources support the specific statements identified below. Our practical exercises are suggestions to consider, not evidence of a treatment effect.
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Delay Discounting MeSH Descriptor Data 2026 — National Library of Medicine
Source type: government.
Updated . Accessed .
Source check, September 5, 2026: Scoped source check. Passage: Scope Note, temporal-delay clause of first sentence, retrieved line 24; Last Updated lines 41–42. Limits: Only temporal-delay component adopted and explicitly introduced as one included aspect. No probability-discounting equivalence, impulsivity measurement, reward task, personal financial advice or ADHD inference. Controlled-vocabulary reference, not an empirical finding or evidence of example effectiveness.
Supports: The National Library of Medicine's delay-discounting scope note includes the tendency for an outcome to be valued less as the wait for it increases.
Correction check: Inspected the exact scope note, relevant contextual annotation and the record's displayed update date. No correction/retraction notice changing the adopted wording was found in checked material. A record-level check only; historical MeSH versions and every external bibliographic record were not audited.
Updates and corrections
Published .
Found a factual error or something unclear? Use the contact route on our Trust page. Read our research method for the evidence approach.