Interference Control in Children with and without ADHD: A Systematic Review of Flanker and Simon Task Performance

Mullane, Jennifer C.; Corkum, Penny; Klein, Raymond M.; McLaughlin, Elizabeth

doi:10.1080/09297040802348028

Cited by 182 publications

(178 citation statements)

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“…We could not reject the null-hypothesis with regard to emotional interference, meaning that there is not enough support within the current study for a specific emotional interference deficit in children with ADHD. The findings however indicate a generic interference control deficit in the current sample of children with ADHD, which adds to the existing literature on interference control deficits in ADHD (e.g., Lansbergen et al, 2007;Mullane et al, 2009). Future research is warranted investigating the relationship between emotional dysregulation in daily life and generic interference control difficulties in individuals with ADHD.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 42%

“…Poor interference control has been argued to be one of the core deficits of ADHD (Barkley, 1997) and many studies have indeed found support for an interference control deficit, although findings across studies are not fully consistent (for meta-analyses, see Lansbergen, Kenemans, & van Engeland, 2007;Mullane, Corkum, Klein, & McLaughlin, 2009;Schwartz & Verhaeghen, 2008;van Mourik, Oosterlaan, & Sergeant, 2005). The mixed findings may be explained by several factors, such as the task used, the calculation of the interference effect, and the heterogeneity of ADHD.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…For example, the Stroop Color-Word Interference Test is often used to assess interference control in ADHD, which according to some researchers is not a valid measure of interference control in ADHD, as differences in reading ability or naming speed may confound interference scores (van Mourik et al, 2005). Findings from studies incorporating other paradigms such as the Erikson Flanker Task may be more (but also not fully) consistent (Johnstone, Barry, Markovska, Dimoska, & Clarke, 2009;Mullane et al, 2009;Samyn, Wiersema, Bijttebier, & Roeyers, 2014). The findings of weakened inhibition of task-irrelevant backgrounds in children with ADHD in the current study, using an n-back task, adds to the evidence of an interference control deficit in ADHD.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Turning down the heat”: Is poor performance of children with ADHD on tasks tapping “hot” emotional regulation caused by deficits in “cool” executive functions?

Cauwenberge

Sonuga‐Barke

Hoppenbrouwers

et al. 2015

Research in Developmental Disabilities

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Emotional dysregulation in daily life is very common in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is however not clear whether this reflects a specific deficit or that it may be the result of generic executive function (EF) deficits. The current study addresses this question by means of an emotional working memory (WM) task with 2 memory load conditions and four possible backgrounds (blank screen, neutral, positive or negative picture), which was administered to 38 typically developing children and 29 children with ADHD. Children responded slower on trials when negative pictures were presented at the background versus when neutral pictures were presented, indicating an emotional interference effect; however crucially, groups did not differ in this respect. Reaction times were also slower on trials with a neutral picture as background versus trials without a picture, with children with ADHD showing an enhanced interference effect. There was a main effect of WM load on performance, but it did not interact with interference or group effects. To summarize, the findings indicate a generic interference control deficit in the children with ADHD in the current sample, while they could not provide support for an emotional interference deficit. What this paper adds:This paper adds to the existing literature on emotion regulation in children with ADHD by addressing the question whether emotional dysregulation in ADHD reflects a specific deficit or whether it may be understood as an integral part of impaired executive functioning. An emotional n-back task with different backgrounds was applied to distinguish between emotional interference and generic interference effects. The findings could not provide support for a specific emotional interference deficit. Rather, a generic interference control deficit was found, which may have important theoretical and clinical implications.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 42%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 61%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Turning down the heat”: Is poor performance of children with ADHD on tasks tapping “hot” emotional regulation caused by deficits in “cool” executive functions?

Cauwenberge

Sonuga‐Barke

Hoppenbrouwers

et al. 2015

Research in Developmental Disabilities

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“…Heil et al, 2000;Johnstone et al, 2009;Mullane et al, 1 These group differences are likely due to the inability of children with AD/HD to apply their knowledge and abilities to the psychometric instruments, as opposed to any inherent differences. Therefore, reading age and IQ were not included as covariates in order to preserve the clinical relevance of these data.…”

Section: Task Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Event-rate effects in the flanker task: ERPs and task performance in children with and without AD/HD

Johnstone

Galletta

2013

International Journal of Psychophysiology

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Demanding tasks require a greater amount of effort, in which case individuals are required to alter their energetic-state to a level appropriate to perform the task. According to the Cognitive-Energetic Model (CEM), children with AD/HD are unable to effectively modulate their energetic state, leading to task underperformance. Using an Eriksen flanker task with varying event-rates, the current study compared the ability of typically-developing children and children with AD/HD to modulate their energetic state. In line with the CEM, it was predicted that children with AD/HD would underperform in the fast and slow eventrates. Results indicated that the groups did not differ in commission errors (i.e., incorrect responses). However, children with AD/HD made more omission errors to incongruent stimuli at the fast and slow eventrates, compared to controls. N2 amplitude was significantly larger for the AD/HD than control group in the slow event-rate. It is concluded that the energetic state modulation dysfunction in children with AD/HD results in an inability to attend to the task, as opposed to an inability to perform the task itself. Furthermore, these task performance differences did not manifest in either the N2 or P3 ERP components. Therefore, inattention in children with AD/HD may have its locus in response preparation, as opposed to stimulus processing, but more research is required to validate these conjectures. Abstract: Demanding tasks require a greater amount of effort, in which case individuals are required to alter their energetic-state to a level appropriate to perform the task. According to the CognitiveEnergetic Model (CEM), children with AD/HD are unable to effectively modulate their energetic state, leading to task underperformance. Using an Eriksen flanker task with varying event-rates, the current study compared the ability of typically-developing children and children with AD/HD to modulate their energetic state. In line with the CEM, it was predicted that children with AD/HD would underperform in the fast and slow event-rates. Results indicated that the groups did not differ in commission errors (i.e., incorrect responses). However, children with AD/HD made more omission errors (i.e., impulsively early or non-responses) to incongruent stimuli at the fast and slow event-rates, compared to controls. N2 amplitude was significantly larger for the AD/HD than control group in the slow event-rate. It is concluded that the energetic state modulation dysfunction in children with AD/HD results in an inability to attend to the task, as opposed to an inability to perform the task itself. Furthermore, these task performance differences did not manifest in either the N2 or P3 ERP components. Therefore, inattention in children with AD/HD may have its locus in response preparation, as opposed to stimulus processing, but more research is required to validate these conjectures. Highlights Children with AD/HD unable to effectively modulate energetic state  Event-rate varied during interference control in c...

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“…For instance, inhibition has been measured using a number of different tasks, including the Stroop task (MacLeod, Dodd, Sheard, Wilson, & Bibi, 2003;Stroop, 1935), the Simon task (Hommel, 2011), the Eriksen flanker task (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974;Mullane, Corkum, Klein, & McLaughlin, 2009), the antisaccade task (Luna, 2009;Munoz & Everling, 2004), and the go/no-go task (Cragg & Nation, 2008). Updating has been measured by the Corsi blocks task (Lezak, 1983); n-back tasks (Owen, McMillan, Laird, & Bullmore, 2005); counting, reading, and operation span tasks (Barrouillet, Gavens, Vergauwe, Gaillard, & Camos, 2009;Case, 1995;Daneman & Carpenter, 1980;Turner & Engle, 1989); and symmetry span tasks (Kane et al, 2004).…”

Section: The Structure and The Measures Of Efsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between Executive Functions and Language Abilities in Children: A Latent Variables Approach

Kaushanskaya

Park

Gangopadhyay

et al. 2017

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose: We aimed to outline the latent variables approach for measuring nonverbal executive function (EF) skills in school-age children, and to examine the relationship between nonverbal EF skills and language performance in this age group. Method: Seventy-one typically developing children, ages 8 through 11, participated in the study. Three EF components, inhibition, updating, and task-shifting, were each indexed using 2 nonverbal tasks. A latent variables approach was used to extract latent scores that represented each EF construct. Children were also administered common standardized language measures. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between EF and language skills.Results: Nonverbal updating was associated with the Receptive Language Index on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition (CELF-4). When composites denoting lexical-semantic and syntactic abilities were derived, nonverbal inhibition (but not shifting or updating) was found to predict children's syntactic abilities. These relationships held when the effects of age, IQ, and socioeconomic status were controlled. Conclusions: The study makes a methodological contribution by explicating a method by which researchers can use the latent variables approach when measuring EF performance in school-age children. The study makes a theoretical and a clinical contribution by suggesting that language performance may be related to domain-general EFs. E xecutive functions (EFs) are a set of top-down cognitive control processes used to manage thought and behavior (Diamond, 2013;Miyake et al., 2000). EFs are crucial to the ability to adapt efficiently to changes in the environment (Huizinga, Dolan, & van der Molen, 2006;Zelazo, Müller, Frye, & Marcovitch, 2003), and to the ability to manage basic daily tasks, such as planning, decision making, and problem solving (Friedman et al., 2006;Miyake et al., 2000). It is not surprising then that there is a wealth of literature linking EFs and broad quality-of-life outcomes, including academic achievement (e.g., Best, Miller, & Naglieri, 2011;Blair & Razza, 2007) and social-emotional development (Broidy et al., 2003;Ferrier, Bassett, & Denham, 2014) There is a great deal of interest in accurately measuring EF skills in our field, both for the purposes of documenting EF deficits in impaired populations and for the purposes of possibly influencing language outcomes through targeting EF skills. In the present study, we examined EF performance in a sample of monolingual typically developing children, with the following three goals. The first goal was a methodological one: We aimed to document the use of a latent variables approach when measuring nonverbal EF performance in children. The second goal was a clinical one: We aimed to examine whether children's performance on common standardized language measures is associated with EFs. The third goal was a theoretical one: We aimed to examine whether domain-general EF skills (as indexed by performance on nonverbal EF tasks)...

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Interference Control in Children with and without ADHD: A Systematic Review of Flanker and Simon Task Performance

Cited by 182 publications

References 69 publications

“Turning down the heat”: Is poor performance of children with ADHD on tasks tapping “hot” emotional regulation caused by deficits in “cool” executive functions?

“Turning down the heat”: Is poor performance of children with ADHD on tasks tapping “hot” emotional regulation caused by deficits in “cool” executive functions?

Event-rate effects in the flanker task: ERPs and task performance in children with and without AD/HD

The Relationship Between Executive Functions and Language Abilities in Children: A Latent Variables Approach

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