Intratask distractibility in hyperkinetic and nonhyperkinetic children

Abstract

Previous laboratory studies that have either introduced extraneous enviromental stimulation or tested children in cubicles have failed to provide support for the common clinical notion that hyperkinetic children are highly distractible. Based on the Rosenthal and Allen (1978) proposal, distractibility was investigated by introducing irrelevant information within the task context. Intratask distractibility was examined by comparing the performance of hyperkinetic and nonhyperkinetic children on a speeded classification task. Errors measured for responses to slides containing either zero, constant, one varying, or two varying irrelevant stimulus dimensions. Dimensional salience of the three dimensions used in the study was measured for each child. The data indicate that hyperkinetics made more errors than nonhyperkinetics when constant irrelevant or two varying irrelevant dimensions were presented, but the two groups made equal errors when there was no irrelevant information presented within the stimulus array. No group differences in distractibility were found when the irrelevant dimension was low salience. It was concluded that salience of distractors presented within the task context may be useful in specifying the particular task conditions in which hyperkinetic children exhibit high distractibility.

Music and Video as Distractors for Boys with ADHD in the Classroom: Comparison with Controls, Individual Differences, and Medication Effects

“…The fact that video was arguably more salient (visual plus auditory versus auditory only) suggests that this too may explain why video was a more potent distractor for children with ADHD. In fact, previous research has demonstrated that differences between ADHD and controls emerge only for salient distractors (Rosenthal and Allen 1980). An important caveat is that there were considerable individual differences in response to the distractors (see Table 4 and Experiment 2).…”

“…Rosenthal and Allen (1980) and Radosh and Gittleman (1981) both showed that when highly salient distractors such as colorful pictures were used, children with ADHD were more distracted and showed greater impairment on task performance than did control children. Of note is that only the highly salient distractors had this effect; distractors that were less salient did not change the children's performance.…”

Deficient inhibitory control in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

“…Alternatively, investigators could select subjects basely solely on the reports of a single informant. This strategy would exclude some children with ADHD who are symptomatic in one situation only and would not permit a distinction between situational and pervasive ADHD (e.g., Atkins, Pelham, & Licht, 1985;Dykman, Ackerman, & Oglesby, 1979;Goldstein, 1987aGoldstein, , 1987bRosenthal & Allen, 1980;Sergeant & Scholten, 1985a, 1985b.…”

Theory‐ and Evidence‐Based Strategies for Children with Attentional Problems

“…Under these conditions children with ADHD choose the more stimulating alternative (Lee & Zentall, 2002). In general, added "bells and whistles" can decrease the performance of children with ADHD more than for their peers when that stimulation is nonrelevant and is added within complex tasks or is added externally in such a way that attention cannot be shared and performance is timed (Rosenthal & Allen, 1980;Zentall, Zentall, & Barack, 1978a;Zentall, Zentall, & Booth, 1978b).…”