Toward a Clearer Definition of the Attentional Deficit of Hyperactive Children

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the frontal lobe syndrome

“…Thus, it appears unlikely that ADHD ehildren were demonstrating meaningfu1 difficulties in reca11 on this simple test. These results are consistent with those in studies previously described in which AVHD subjects were able to perform at Ne levels on tests which did not require the use of comp1ex mnemonic strategies (Benezra & Douglas, 1988;Douglas & Peters, 1979).…”

“…The findings on memory tasks in Study 3 confirmed previously reported findings (Benezra & Douglas, 1988;Douglas & Benezra, in preparation;Douglas & Peters, 1979) that ADHD children are able to perform as weIl as Nes on simple, direct memory tasks. Normal memory performance was demonstrated in both verbal and visuospatial dimensions.…”

“…Children wlth ADHD do show eVldence of memory impairment when task requirements are more strlngent. Although performance of ADI/D chl1dren did not differ slgniflcantly from normal controls on a 12 word llst (Benezra & Douglas, 1988), Douglas and Peters (1979) reported slgnificant impairment of recall of a 34 ward list and O'Neill and Douglas (ln preparation) found significant normal-ADIID differences on a 24 word llst. Slmllar1y, Spring, Yellin, and Greenberg (1976) reported impaired recall of Digit Span by ADIID children when an extended form of the tasK was used.…”

“…ADHD children make more errors of both omission (falling to respond to correct stimuli) and commission (responding to incorrect stimuli) than do normal control (NC) children (Douglas & Peters, 1979;Nuechterleln, 1983; Q'Dougherty, Nuechterlein & Drew, 1984). Thus, as weIl as demonstrating attentional deflcits, the children fail to inhibit inappropriate responses.…”

“…Sergeant and Scholten (1985b) ADHD children also make inappropriate responses on de1ayed reaction time (DRT) tasks in which a preliminary sIgnal warns the chi Id to prepare to respond to the reaction stimulus. Errors made by ADHD subJects include respondlng to the warning signal, making anticipatory reponses prIor to presentation of the reaction signal, and responding more than once to the reaction stimulus (Cohen & Douglas, 1972;Douglas & Peters, 1979;Firestone 1 -.. highly variable and the y show similar difficulty withholding reponses following task-related response tlpriming". The prediction that ADHD children will have difficulty withholding primed responses on a GNG task will be tested in Study 1.…”