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Objective:Several studies agree on the link between attention and eye movements during reading. It has been well established that attention and working memory (WM) interact. A question that could be addressed to better understand these relationships is: to what extent can an attention deficit affect eye movements and, consequently, remembering a word? The main aims of the present study were (1) to compare visual patterns of word stimuli between children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and typically developing (TD) children, during a visual task on word stimuli; (2) to examine the WM accuracy of the word stimuli; and (3) to compare the dynamic of visual scan path in both groups.Method:A total of 49 children with ADHD, age and sex matched with 32 TD children, were recruited. We used eye-tracking technology in which the Word Memory Test was implemented. To highlight the scan path of participants, two measures were used: the ordered direction of reading and the entropy index.Results:ADHD groups showed a poorer WM than TD group. They did not follow a typical scan path across the words compared with TD children, but their visual scanning was discontinuous, uncoordinated, and chaotic. ADHD groups showed an index of entropy among the four categories of saccades higher than TD group.Conclusions:The findings were discussed in light of two directions: the relationship between atypical visual scan path and WM and the training implications related to the necessity of redirecting the dynamic of visual scan path in ADHD to improve WM.

This study aimed to examine whether the visual working memory (VWM) phases, encoding and recall, may be impaired in children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The second aim was to measure electroencephalographic (EEG) correlates of two types of encoding: efficient and inefficient encoding. 23 children with ADHD, age and sex matched with 23 non-ADHD subjects, were recruited. With reference to neurophysiological measures, an EEG was recorded before the WMT, during the encoding and finally during the recalling phases of the WMT. With reference to neuropsychological measures, we tested the encoding phase through eye-tracker measures and the recalling phase through the free recall span measure. In comparison to the control subjects, the ADHD group showed lower eye-tracker measurements and free recall span. They also showed lower alpha, beta and theta levels than the control group. Only in the efficient encoding, the control and ADHD groups showed similar beta bands. These results suggest that the ADHD group showed a decrease in the power of nearly all bands.