Time perception deficits in attention‐deficit/ hyperactivity disorder and comorbid reading difficulties in child and adolescent samples

Abstract

Background: Our objective was to investigate time perception in Attention‐Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) with and without comorbid reading difficulties (RD) in child and adolescent participants. Method: In study 1, 50 children with ADHD (31 ADHD, 19 ADHD+RD) and age‐matched healthy controls (n = 50) completed three psychophysical tasks: duration discrimination (target duration of 400 ms versus a foil duration), frequency discrimination (a control condition to evaluate general perceptual ability), and a duration estimation task using the method of reproduction for intervals of 400 ms, 2000 ms, and 6000 ms. Study 2 used the same tasks with an adolescent sample (35 ADHD, 24 ADHD+RD, 39 controls). Results: In both studies, children and adolescents with ADHD and ADHD+RD displayed some impairments in duration discrimination and the precision with which they reproduced the intervals on the estimation task, particularly the shorter 400 ms interval. The most severe impairments tended to occur in the comorbid ADHD+RD group. No impairments were found on the frequency discrimination task. ADHD participants also displayed significant intra‐individual variability in their performance on the estimation task. Finally, short‐term and working memory, estimated full‐scale IQ, and teacher report of hyperactivity/impulsivity were found to differentially predict performance on the time perception measures in the adolescent clinical sample. Conclusions: Deficits in duration discrimination, duration estimation, and intra‐individual performance variability may have cascaded effects on the temporal organisation of behaviour in children and adolescents with ADHD and ADHD+RD.

European clinical guidelines for hyperkinetic disorder ? first upgrade

“…Neuropsychological and electrophysiological studies have found various alterations in higher-order cognitive functions [9,114,142], motivational processes [129], and more basic information processing stages [13,83,135,149,174,188]. The tests used are summarised in the Appendix.…”

Comorbidity between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and reading disabilities: Implications for assessment and treatment

“…Some studies (Toplack et al, 2003) have found that time estimation deficits are associated with ADHD, and especially with ADHD+RD, and may be influencing the time organization of the behavior of people with these disorders. However, other studies have not found the same tendency (Tiffin-Richards et al,…”

“…The authors concluded that deficits related to time estimation are associated with ADHD, and more consistently with ADHD+RD, and that these deficits, together with the great intra-individual variability, can have cascade effects in the time organization of the behavior in children and adolescents with these disorders. Nevertheless, the absence of an RD group in the study by Toplack et al (2003) makes it impossible to draw solid conclusions about time perception in this clinical group and its differences with the ADHD groups.…”

“…One of the explanatory hypotheses for identification of ADHD is the existence of a deficit in time perception. Toplack, Rucklidge, Hetherington, John and Tannock (2003) studied time perception in children and adolescents with ADHD (with and without RD), using two tasks related to the duration of tones. The first task consisted of determining which was the longer of two sounds (duration discrimination).…”

Developments and challenges in the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD

“…Studies have found that, on average, individuals with ADHD, compared to controls, have worse performance in executive functions, such as: inhibition, working memory, memory span, processing speed, arousal, temporal information processing, response variability; and have also impairments in motivational processes. [27][28][29][30][31][32][33] However, the findings of neuropsychological impairments are only of moderate effect sizes and not all individuals with the disorder have these dysfunctions. 27,34 Sonuga-Barke et al 35 evaluated three neuropsychological domains: inhibitory control, delay aversion, and temporal processing, and found that ADHD children had poorer performance on all domains.…”