Preadolescent girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: II. Neuropsychological performance in relation to subtypes and individual classification.

Abstract

This study examined executive functions, motor speed, and language processing in a diverse, preadolescent sample of 93 girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) combined type, 47 ADHD inattentive type, and 88 age-and ethnicity-matched comparison girls. Testing was performed without stimulant medication. All 10 neuropsychological variables showed significant omnibus subgroup differences, with 8 of 10 combined versus comparison contrasts significant (average effect size medium) and 6 of 10 inattentive versus comparison contrasts significant (average effect size small to medium), but only 2 of 10 combined versus inattentive contrasts significant (average effect size small). Results were robust to statistical control of demographic variables, comorbidities, and IQ. Discriminant function analysis revealed relatively high sensitivity but only modest specificity in predicting ADHD from comparison status from test performance; classification of the inattentive type was extremely poor.

Prospective follow-up of girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder into adolescence: Evidence for continuing cross-domain impairment.

“…We base our hypotheses on the above-cited literature and on our own previous findings of (a) major comorbidity and impairment in the present sample during childhood (Hinshaw, 2002;Hinshaw, Carte, Sami, Treuting, & Zupan, 2002) and (b) continuing crossdomain impairment at our follow-up in early to midadolescence (Hinshaw, Carte, Fan, Jassy, & Owens, 2007;Hinshaw et al, 2006;Mikami et al, 2008;Owens, Hinshaw, Lee, & Lahey, 2009). First, we predict that despite a continuing decline in reported symptoms of ADHD over time, particularly in the HI domain (see Hart, Lahey, Loeber, Applegate, & Frick, 1995;Loya et al, 2012), girls with childhood diagnosed ADHD will continue to show elevations in core symptomatology (ADHD-related, internalizing, and externalizing), young-adult relevant symptom areas (e.g., eating pathology; see, e.g., Biederman et al, 2010;Mikami et al, 2008), substance use severity (Hinshaw et al, 2006; but see also Babinski et al, 2011, for opposing findings), several aspects of impairment (service utilization, academic and global), and crucial outcomes such as self-injurious behavior and suicide attempts (see Chronis-Tuscano et al, 2010).…”

Neuropsychological functioning of girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder followed prospectively into adolescence: Evidence for continuing deficits?

“…NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript to non-diagnosed comparison individuals, samples of children and adults with attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show significant neuropsychological deficits, particularly those linked with EF (see, for example, Hinshaw, Carte, Sami, Treuting, & Zupan, 2002;Klorman et al, 1999; Nigg, Blaskey, Huang-Pollack, & Rappley, 2002;Seidman, Biederman, Faraone, Weber, & Ouellette, 1997;Seidman et al, 2005; see reviews of Barkley, Grodzinsky, & duPaul, 1992;Hervey, Epstein, & Curry, 2004;Seidman et al, 2004; Sergeant, Guerts, & Oosterlaan, 2002). Such deficits appear on a number of different tests and are largely independent of comorbid conditions that accompany ADHD Seidman et al, 1997).…”

“…The priority was placed on well-established and well-validated neuropsychological tests, most of which were parallel forms to those used at baseline (see Hinshaw et al, 2002) Figure (ROCF), which at baseline had been our most sensitive neuropsychological/executive test for discriminating the ADHD from the comparison sample (Hinshaw, 2002;Sami et al, 2003). The ROCF is used to evaluate planning, perceptual organization, and graphomotor abilities (Lezak, 1983;Spreen & Strauss, 1998).…”

“…The issue is contentious. On the one hand, it would be important to understand neuropsychological and executive differences between girls with ADHD and comparison girls that occur even when controlling for the 10-point-or-more IQ superiority of the comparison girls at baseline (see Hinshaw et al, 2002, for rationale and presentation of baseline data, which revealed that during childhood, all neuropsychological deficits survived control of IQ). However, it may well be that controlling for intelligence scores in such designs is tantamount to overcontrol (see, for example, Miller & Chapman, 2001), given that IQ deficits are an inherent part of the ADHD construct.…”

“…Parallel to the baseline analyses, we chose omission errors (percentage of failures to respond to target stimuli out of the total number of targets presented) and commission errors (percentage of key presses for nontargets out of the total number of nontargets presented) as the primary dependent measures. Conners (1995) provides criterion-related validity data for these scores in terms of known-groups differentiation and sensitivity to treatment response.Rapid Automatized Naming Test (RAN; Denckla & Rudel, 1974)-Here, children rapidly name repeated items: automatically processed digits (digits), pictured stimuli (objects), and digit-letter pairs (subtest 1 of global-local; see Hinshaw et al, 2002). We administered the digits subtest as an orienting task; objects and digit-letter pairs were the two subtests used in our analyses.…”