Response Inhibition, Memory, and Attention in Boys with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

Newly developed measures of response inhibition, verbal and non-verbal memory, and attention were applied to a sample of boys diagnosed with ADHD (n 5 50; 14 predominantly inattentive type and 36 combined type) with no diagnosed comorbid conditions, who had received no stimulant medication for a minimum period of 20 hours prior to test administration. Performance was assessed relative to 50 individually age-matched control boys. Results revealed signi cant multivariate group differences on all three tests, supported by univariate effects on measures of verbal memory and attentional switching. In all cases, ADHD boys performed more poorly than the control boys. However, contrary to expectations, boys with ADHD made signi cantly fewer impulsive responses (false positives) on the speci c measure of response, despite recording signi cantly more misses than the controls. Furthermore, no signi cant differences were observed according to ADHD subtype. The present research therefore demonstrates and more fully characterises the nature of the observed memory and attentional impairments in boys with ADHD and would appear to have clear implications for education and the further development of theory.

Children with ADHD symptoms are less susceptible to gap-filling errors than typically developing children

“…This result stands in apparent contradiction with the assumption that executive dysfunctions may promote memory errors and the observation that ADHD children may exhibit increased intrusion errors in memory tasks compared to matched controls (Cornoldi et al, 1999;West, Houghton, Douglas, & Whiting, 2002). However, in these studies, errors concerned intrusions of irrelevant, semantically unrelated, material.…”

Elements of Working Memory as Predictors of Goal-Setting Skills in Children With Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder

“…There are only a few studies on Dual Task performance in ADHD, and the results are partly conflicting. West, Houghton, Douglas, and Whiting (2002) found no group difference between controls and children with ADHD using visual search and auditory signal counting as the two tasks. Karatekin (2004) reported longer reaction times in Dual Task performance in children with ADHD compared to controls when a simple reaction time task was combined with the digit span task, with the length of lists set at the child's own span.…”

Differences in memory functioning between children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or focal epilepsy

“…Of the studies that have examined it across DSM-IV subtypes, no significant differences between ADHD-PI and ADHD-C were found (Geurts, Verté, Oosterlaan, Roeyers, & Sergeant, 2005; Schmitz et al, 2002; West et al, 2002). ADHD-PI and ADHD-C are typically the focus of these types of studies, rather than ADHD-HI, because the inattention dimension is argued to be more strongly associated with neuropsychological impairment, and because individuals with ADHD-C display cognitive deficits consistent with ADHD-PI along with symptoms of behavioral impulsivity (Chhabildas, Pennington, & Wilcutt, 2001).…”