Attention Mechanisms in Children with Anxiety Disorders and in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Implications for Research and Practice

Weissman, Adam S.; Chu, Brian C.; Reddy, Linda A.; Mohlman, Jan

doi:10.1080/15374416.2012.651993

Cited by 31 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…In addition, most SMD youth have co‐occurring ADHD; another limitation of this study is the absence of an ADHD comparison group. Emotion‐attention interactions in ADHD are not well understood, although other studies have not found evidence of threat bias in youth with ADHD or other disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Emotionattention interactions in ADHD are not well understood, although other studies have not found evidence of threat bias in youth with ADHD or other disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs). [13,44,51] Including nonirritable youth with DBDs, such as ODD and ADHD, would speak to the specificity of attention biases to irritability, rather than to ODD or ADHD. Unfortunately, we were not able to address this question in the current study because approximately 85% of SMD youth met criteria for either ODD, ADHD, or both, making any comparative analyses underpowered.…”

Section: Depression and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attention Bias to Threat Faces in Severe Mood Dysregulation

et al. 2013

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Background We used a dot-probe paradigm to examine attention bias toward threat (i.e., angry) and happy face stimuli in Severe Mood Dysregulation (SMD) vs. healthy comparison (HC) youth. The tendency to allocate attention to threat is well established in anxiety and other disorders of negative affect. SMD is characterized by the negative affect of irritability, and longitudinal studies suggest childhood irritability predicts adult anxiety and depression. Therefore, it is important to study pathophysiologic connections between irritability and anxiety disorders. Methods SMD patients (N=74) and HC youth (N=42) completed a visual probe paradigm to assess attention bias to emotional faces. Diagnostic interviews were conducted and measures of irritability and anxiety were obtained in patients. Results SMD youth differed from HC youth in having a bias toward threatening faces (p<0.01). Threat bias was positively correlated with the severity of the SMD syndrome and depressive symptoms; degree of threat bias did not differ between SMD youth with and without co-occurring anxiety disorders or depression. SMD and HC youth did not differ in bias toward or away from happy faces. Conclusions SMD youth demonstrate an attention bias toward threat, with greater threat bias associated with higher levels of SMD symptom severity. Our findings suggest that irritability may share a pathophysiological link with anxiety and depressive disorders. This finding suggests the value of exploring further whether attention bias modification treatments that are effective for anxiety are also helpful in the treatment of irritability.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Depression and Anxietymentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention Bias to Threat Faces in Severe Mood Dysregulation

et al. 2013

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“…However, the extant work directly comparing EF performance across neuropsychiatric disorders yields mixed findings. 16–22 For example, some studies document worse EF performance in youth with ADHD compared to youth with anxiety disorders 19 ; however, other work finds no such EF differences. 20 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of the Specificity of Executive Function Impairment in Developmental Psychopathology

White

Moore

Calkins

et al. 2017

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psych

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Objective Deficits in executive function (EF) are common in neuropsychiatric disorders, but the specificity of these deficits remains unclear. The aim of the current study was to elucidate the pattern of EF impairment across psychopathologies in children and adolescents. We assessed associations among components of EF with dimensions of psychopathology, including an overall psychopathology factor. Method Participants (8–21 years) were from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (n=9,498). Data from a structured clinical screening interview were reduced into five dimensional domains using factor analyses: overall psychopathology, anxious-misery, fear, externalizing, and psychosis. EF components of attentional vigilance, response inhibition, conceptual flexibility, and working memory were assessed. Associations between the clinical dimensions and both general EF ability and specific EF components were examined. Results EF ability showed both common and domain-specific associations with clinical symptoms. General EF was directly associated with general psychopathology, anxious-misery, and psychosis domains, but not with the fear or externalizing domains. For the EF subcomponents, differences emerged in the magnitude and direction of association between the components and clinical domains. Poorer EF was typically associated with increased symptoms across clinical domains; however, in some instances, better EF ability was associated with greater symptom burden, particularly in the fear domain. Conclusion EF has widespread associations with psychopathology in youth. Findings reveal some overlap in the type of EF impairment across clinical phenotypes, as indicated by similar patterns of associations between some clinical symptoms and EF. However, findings also revealed domain-specific associations with EF that differed across EF components and clinical domains.

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“…For example, Weissman and colleagues (2012) compared the performance of anxious, inattentive-impulsive, and typically developing children on several neurocognitive tasks assessing attentional processes. The authors found that inattentive-impulsive youth performed more poorly on tests of general attentional processes, as measured by the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (CPT-II), than anxious children and typically developing controls.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inattention symptoms and the diagnosis of comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder among youth with generalized anxiety disorder

Elkins

Carpenter

Pincus

et al. 2014

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

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Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) commonly co-occur in childhood. Inattention symptoms can be hallmarks of both conditions, however assessment tools of inattention may not effectively distinguish between the two conditions. The present study used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses to examine the high-end specificity of the Attention Problems Scale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) for detecting comorbid ADHD among youth with GAD (N = 46). Results support the utility of the Attention Problems Scale for accurately distinguishing between the two groups (AUC = 0.84, SE = .06). Specifically, a cut score of 63 achieved the most favorable values across diagnostic utility indices; 74% of GAD youth with ADHD scored above this cutoff and 91% of GAD youth without ADHD scored below this cutoff. Findings provide support for the use of the CBCL Attention Problems Scale to supplement diagnostic interviews and identify inattention associated with ADHD among GAD youth.

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Attention Mechanisms in Children with Anxiety Disorders and in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Implications for Research and Practice

Cited by 31 publications

References 45 publications

Attention Bias to Threat Faces in Severe Mood Dysregulation

Attention Bias to Threat Faces in Severe Mood Dysregulation

An Evaluation of the Specificity of Executive Function Impairment in Developmental Psychopathology

Inattention symptoms and the diagnosis of comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder among youth with generalized anxiety disorder

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