No abstract

Children with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH), learning disability (LD), ADDH-LD, and normal children were compared on measures of sustained attention, selective attention, and span of apprehension. Unique patterns of attentional deficits were associated with each of the diagnostic groups. The ADDH children with and without learning disabilities exhibited sustained attention deficits. The LD groups evidenced selective attention deficits on a speeded classification task. The LD and ADDH-LD groups evidenced recall difficulties on a paired-associate task, regardless of distractor presence. The three clinical groups performed more poorly than did the normal group on the span of apprehension measure. Although attentional deficits were most pervasive in the ADDH-LD group, multivariate composites of attentional variables were sensitive to the ADDH and LD dimensions. The implications of the findings for diagnosis and assessment are discussed.

Physically abused and nonabused children were compared on child-completed measures of depression, hopelessness, self-esteem, and locus of control. Results indicated that, in comparison with nonabused controls, abused children evidenced more depressive symptoms, heightened externality, lower self-esteem, and greater hopelessness about the future. Group differences in depressive symptomatology were not accounted for on the basis of differences in age, sex, race, gender, IQ, or socioeconomic status. Results replicate the results of Kazdin, Moser, Colbus, and Bell (1985) derived from a sample of physically abused psychiatric inpatients and extend the generality of these findings to abused children of nonpatient status. Implications of the findings for clinical interventions, theoretical models of child depression, and future research are discussed.

No abstract