Focused attention in pervasively hyperactive children

This experiment was designed to investigate the hypothesized distractibility of hyperactive children in a focused attention task. Distractibility was defined in terms of Shiffrin and Schneider's model of focused attention as the ability to ignore irrelevant in favor of relevant information. Failure to inhibit processing of irrelevant information indicates a focused attention deficit. Task efficiency in all children decreased when irrelevant information was presented. The mean reaction time, within-subject variance of reaction time, and error percentage all increased compared with a nondistraction condition. Thus, the demands of focused attention, as formulated in the model, were measured optimally. Since hyperactives and controls did not differ significantly with respect to task efficiency in the distraction condition, a focused attention deficit in hyperactives was not demonstrated. The hyperactives did nevertheless make more errors and their responding was more variable than the controls. However, the difference in error percentages between hyperactives and controls was associated with the difference in IQ. It is speculated that the variable responding in hyperactives is caused by a less optimal state of performance unrelated to distractibility.The authors wish to thank L. Leertouwer for making the drawings. This research was supported by grants from the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Pure Research (ZWO) and the Professor Duijker Fund.     

Visual and auditory attention performance in hyperactive children: Competence or compliance

The effect of self-control and compliance on the attentional performance of hyperactive children was assessed. Visual and auditory attention tasks were presented in conditions in which the experimenter was either absent and therefore not imposing external control, or present and therefore imposing some degree of control. There was no difference in performance between hyperactives and controls when the experimenter was present, but the hyperactives' performance showed a greater deterioration than controls when the experimenter was absent. The amount of movement displayed during the tasks was greater for hyperactives and increased more for this group during experimenter-absent conditions. The results support the contention that noncompliance is a major contributor to the poor performance of hyperactive children, which can be seen as an application deficit rather than an ability deficit. These findings have relevance for the current debate on the association between hyperactivity and conduct disorder, and from an applied perspective they serve to stress the importance of situational contributors to the problem behaviors of hyperactive children.     

Performance and activity of hyperactive and normal boys as a function of distraction and reward

Twenty-five hyperactive boys and 25 controls matched for age, social class, and race were compared on three performance tasks (coding, tone discrimination, and connecting dots) in two settings (nondistracting and highly distracting). Control Ss performed significantly better than did hyperactives in all conditions, except during tone discrimination and connecting dots in the nondistracting setting. Distraction decreased performance for both groups on the coding task and for hyperactives on the tone discrimination task, but significantly improved performance for controls on the connecting dots task. Distraction, where detrimental, was not significantly more so for hyperactives than for controls. The effect of reward on coding performance was studied in the distracting condition; reward produced the best performance for both groups, but significant differences between groups were not found.This research was supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service Training Grant (in Biological Sciences) No. MH07081.The participation of the following people in helping to design this research study and collect data is hereby acknowledged: David Bremer, Ted Goltz, Ruth Rosenthal, and Michael Stern.     

Effects of reward on delayed reaction time task performance of hyperactive children

This experiment was designed to investigate the effects of continuous, partial, and noncontingent schedules of reward, as well as the withdrawal of rewards, on the performance of hyperactive and normal control children on a delayed reaction time task. Although noncontingent reward resulted in faster reaction times for control subjects, performance of hyperactives deteriorated under noncontingent reward and improved when it was withdrawn. Also, reaction times of controls during extinction remained superior to baseline, whereas performance of hyperactives returned to baseline level. It was suggested that these and other findings reviewed point to an unusual sensitivity to rewards in hyperactive children.     

The stability of dimensions of behavior in ADHD and normal children over an 8-year followup

The present study reports on standardized behavioral ratings received by a large sample of hyperactive children meeting research diagnostic criteria (n=108) and a community control sample of normal children (n=61) who were followed prospectively over 8 years into adolescence. On some parentreport measures both groups declined in the severity of their behavior problems across time, while on other measures only the hyperactive group declined, but the hyperactives always remained more deviant than the controls at followup. The hyperactives and controls also differed on most teacher and selfreport ratings at followup. The greatest degree of agreement between raters at adolescence was between parent and youth ratings. These results are consistent with previous research demonstrating more deviant scores for hyperactive children than controls on various rating scales at adolescent followup. They also are consistent with research showing significant longitudinal continuity of both internalizing and externalizing behavioral pathology.This research was supported by NIMH gram 42181. We are grateful to Craig S. Edelbrock, Ph.D., for his assistance with the data entry program, and to Ann Edwards and Gerry Gillespie for their assistance in locating subjects.     

The effects of reward and punishment on reaction times and autonomic activity in hyperactive and normal children

The performance of hyperactive and control children was compared on a delayed reaction time task under three reinforcement conditions: reward, punishment, and reward plus punishment. Hyperactives had slower and more variable reaction times, suggesting an attentional deficit. Although each of the three reinforcement conditons was successful in improving reaction times for both subject groups, reward led to a significant increase in impulsive responses in the hyperactive children. Autonomic data revealed that reward also increased arousal to a greater extent than punishment or reward plus punishment. Although resting skin conductance was not different in the two groups of subjects, hyperactives produced fewer specific autonomic responses to signal stimuli.     

The Additive Factor Method: A differential diagnostic tool in hyperactivity and learning disability

The Additive Factor Method assumes that task performance is the sum of sequential and independent processes. We studied the duration of the central processes (memory search and decision) and the motor decision process in hyperactive and learning-disabled children under socalled divided attention and S-R compatibility conditions. It was found that the learning-disabled were impaired in memory search and decision processes whereas hyperactives were impaired in the motor decision process.The authors wish to thank L. Leertouwer for making the drawings.     

The hyperactive child at adolescence: Cognitive,emotional, and social functioning

In view of the paucity of detailed followup studies on hyperactive children, the performance of 15 adolescents diagnosed hyperactive 5 years previously was compared to that of a control group of equivalent age, sex, intelligence, and social class. Eleven cognitive tests measuring sustained attention, visual-motor and motor skills, abstraction, and reading ability, as well as three self-assessment tests examining selfesteem, activity level, social functioning, academic status, and career aspirations were administered. The hyperactives performed significantly worse than the controls on the sustained attention, visualmotor, and motor tasks, and on two of the four reading tests. They also gave themselves significantly lower ratings on some of the selfesteem and sociability items. It would appear that the hyperactives at adolescence still have attentional and stimulus-processing difficulties, which affect not only their academic performance but also their social functioning.This study was supported by a Federal-Provincial Mental Health Grant to Dr. G. Weiss. The authors wish to thank Katherine Levine and Margaret Radigan for their assistance with test preparation and scoring. Thanks are also extended to Ken MacRae for his computer-processing advice, particularly his help with several multivariate and principal components analyses from which the present authors have derived their current theoretical position. Klaus Minde and Nancy Cohen are now at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, while Elizabeth Hoy is at the Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland.     

Hyperactive boys in their classroom: Assessment of teacher and peer perceptions,interactions, and classroom behaviors

Teacher ratings, peer perceptions, peer interactions, and classroom behaviors of 17 hyperactive and 17 active elementary school-age boys, nominated by their teachers, were compared using multivariate analyses and planned comparisons in order to better describe and assess hyperactivity in its most probable setting —the classroom. Hyperactive boys were found to be significantly different from actives on measures from all data sources in that they were perceived and interacted more negatively. Cluster analyses of teacher ratings of 90 hyperactives from a clinical sample and 17 hyperactives from the current sample were used to discriminate among different types of hyperactives. Four types were named anxious, conduct problem, inattentive, and low problem hyperactives. The fact that six conduct problem hyperactives were found to be more disruptive and have higher activity level ratings than six inattentive hyperactives, when observed in their classrooms, points to the need to study and treat hyperactives as heterogeneous groups.This study is based in part on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Psychology Department, Indiana University, by the first author. Thanks are expressed to the students and teachers of the Monroe County School System who took part in the study. The authors also wish to thank Prof. Robert Sprague of the University of Illinois for providing the Conners Rating Scales on 90 hyperactive children.     

Formal and informal classroom settings: Effects on hyperactivity

The behavior of hyperactive children was compared to controls in two different classroom settings. One setting (Informal) involved choice and variety of tasks; the other setting (Formal) involved teacher specification of a small number of tasks. As assessed by a composite observational measure of hyperactivity, there were significant differences between the hyperactive and control groups in the Formal but not in the Informal setting. Analyses of five individual categories of hyperactive behavior showed that, with one exception, the hyperactive group tended to display higher frequencies of behavior than did controls in both settings. For two of the categories, the difference between the groups was significantly larger in the Formal than in the Informal setting. Finally, a modified observational code was suggested that differentiated hyperactives from controls equally in the two settings.     

Problem solving in hyperactive,normal, and reading-disabled boys

Diagnostic problem solving was examined in groups of hyperactive, normal, and nonhyperactive reading disabled boys matched on age and verbal IQ. On the matrix solution task employed (a version of the game of 20 Questions) hyperactives used less efficient questions and strategies than the other two groups, in spite of the task being designed to maximize the performance of the hyperactives. Readingdisabled children were not significantly worse than normal children on the task. The results were interpreted as suggesting that the attentional difficulties of hyperactives retard the development of strategies for solving complex problems. Nonhyperactive reading disabled children may be less affected in this area because of the absence of significant attentional difficulties.This article is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research of McGill University by the first author. We are grateful to the students, teachers, and principals of the following schools in the Montreal area: Allancroft, Beacon Hill, Briarwood, Cedar Park, Greendale, Hillcrest, Lakeside Heights, Martinvale, Sunny Dale, Thomas H. Bowes, and Vivian Graham. Special thanks are due Rhonda Amsel, John MacNamara, and Chet Olsen for their help and advice.     

Laterality and selective attention in hyperactive children

Laterality and selective attention were investigated in a group of 20 hyperactive children and their matched controls using a dichotic listening task. There was a strong rightear advantage for both groups indicating that hyperactive children were not different from normal children in hemispheric specialization for verbal stimuli. In the selective attention experiment hyperactive children were again not different from normal children in their ability either to select the input designated as relevant or to resist the distraction of input designated irrelevant. Both groups gave more correct responses from the right ear than from the left ear, and more intrusions from the right ear than from the left. The results do not suggest abnormalities of lateralization for verbal material or indicate the existence of a selective attentional deficit. It is suggested that such reported deftcits may be situation or taskspecific.     

A psychosocial study of hyperactive and learning-disabled boys

Adequately reading hyperactive boys, normally behaved learning-disabled (LD) boys, and normal controls were contrasted on tests measuring personality traits, cognitive role taking, and moral reasoning. Additionally, parents and teachers rated all children on a number of behaviors, and parents were interviewed in a process-oriented fashion to assess home stimulation potential. Hyperactive boys were rated more aggressive and anxious than LD boys and controls and had not been encouraged as much by parents to achieve. Hyperactives had been born to younger parents, on the average, and 25% lived with their mothers and stepfathers. None of the LD or control boys had stepfathers. The groups did not differ significantly in moral reasoning ability, cognitive role taking, or locus of control; on the Junior Personality Inventory hyperactives tended to have elevated scores on the neuroticism scale while LD boys had higher scores on the lie scale.This research was supported by Grant HDNS-09119 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.     

Peer popularity and peer communication patterns: Hyperactive versus active but normal boys

Classroom peer perceptions of 18 teacher-nominated hyperactive and 18 teacher-nominated active but normal elementary school-age boys, as revealed in two sociometric measures (Bower's Class Play, like-dislike nomination), were compared. Results indicated that hyperactives were significantly different from actives on all sociometric measures in that they were perceived more negatively. Peer communication patterns also were assessed. The communicative content, communicative quality, and attention to task instructions of hyperactive boys were compared to those of comparison boys. Limited support was found for the earlier finding that hyperactive boys were less likely than comparison boys to modulate behavior in response to changing external cues and to respond to subtle social learning opportunities. The communication task was found to be highly engaging for both groups of boys, and results suggest that hyperactive children may not lack the interpersonal skills necessary for referential communication, although they may be unable to use them consistently in all settings. The need to continue the study of peer relations of hyperactive children in naturalistic settings is stressed.     

Attaining and maintaining preparation: A comparison of attention in hyperactive,normal, and disturbed control children

The hypothesis that hyperactive children have a deficit in sustained attention was investigated. Eighteen children who had attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADDH), aged 7 to 11 years, were compared with children who had conduct disorder (n = 15), mixed conduct disorder and ADDH (n = 26), emotional disorder (n = 18), or learning disability (n = 22), and with normal controls (n = 15). The subjects were tested on three versions of the Continuous Performance Task. Sustained attention was assessed from performance with increasing time on task and from ability to prepare attention in response to a warning. Performance of all subjects deteriorated with increasing time and improved with the opportunity to prepare attention. Hyperactive subjects were not more adversely affected by increasing time, nor did they benefit less than controls from the opportunity to prepare attention. Data reanalysis after rediagnosis according to ICD-9 criteria did not change the results. This study did not confirm the hypothesis that hyperactive children have a unique sustained attention deficit.     

Controlled processing and vigilance in hyperactivity: Time will tell

This paper reviews the concept of sustained attention, placing it within a theoretical framework in which deficits of attention are conceived of as deficits of controlled information processing. Two types of deficit of sustained attention are distinguished: perceptual sensitivity and perceptual criterion. These two deficits are linked to a model of human performance that links controlled processes to the energetic pools: arousal and activation. Perceptual sensitivity (d) deficits are said to reflect arousal deficiencies, especially when observed in the early period of a vigil. Perceptual criterion deficits are associated with the activation pool and the response criterion measure . Despite clear evidence of perceptual deficiency in the hyperactive children to a greater extent than in the control group, and that performance in d declined with time on task, a significant interaction failed to occur between group classification and time on task. Thus, the results failed to support the hypothesis of a sustained attention deficit in hyperactives, since if hyperactives have a sustained attention deficit, both d and should have shown a significantly greater decline in the hyperactive group than in the controls with time on task.The authors wish to thank L. Leertouwer for making the drawings. This research was supported by grants from the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Pure Research (ZWO) and the Professor Duijker Fund.     

A component analysis of attentional problems of educationally handicapped boys

Seventy-three educationally handicapped (EH) and 78 regular class, normally achieving (NA) boys grades 3–8 were tested with a series of measures selected to test three components of attention: coming to attention, decision making, and maintaining attention over time. EH and NA samples were subdivided into three groups by grade level (grades 3–4, 5–6, and 7–8). Based on a teacher-completed behavioral check list, the EH group was further subdivided according to pupils perceived by teachers as hyperactive or nonhyperactive. With the exception of the youngest group, EH and NA samples did not differ from each other on CA, but regular class boys had slightly higher IQs and better reading scores than did their EH peers;EH hyperactives and EH nonhyperactives differed significantly on reading scores, the difference favoring the nonhyperactives. All pupils were individually administered the Children's Embedded Figures Test (CEFT), the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT), and the Children's Checking Task (CCT), the last designed specifically to assess ability to maintain attention over time. EH pupils did not function as efficiently or as accurately on the attentional tasks as did their normally achieving age peers. Significant differences between EH and NA samples were found for CEFT and MFFT errors, as well as for CCT errors of omission and commission. Analyses of the EH group according to hyperactive-nonhyperactive status were for the most part nonsignificant. Correlational analyses yieMed low but statistically significant relationships among the attentional measures, but nonsignificant relationships between IQ and the attentional test scores. Findings were consistent with the interpretation that the three hypothesized components of attention are partially independent and thus may have differential influence on pupils' performance in school.This research was supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service Grant No. 1 RO 1 25076-01A1 and Contract No. 5893, between the State Department of Education and the University of California, Los Angeles.     

An analysis of the hyperactive syndrome: A comparison of hyperactive,behavior problem,asthmatic, and normal children

In an attempt to determine whether the commonly described deficits associated with hyperactivity — inappropriate activity, short attention span, low frustration tolerance, and impulsivity — are unique to this population, hyperactive, behavior problem, asthmatic, and normal control children were studied. The tests most often used in research with hyperactives were administered. Hyperactives, when compared to normals, did show deficits in the aforementioned areas. However, when compared to the behavior problem and asthmatic children only the attentional deficits clearly differentiated hyperactives from the other children.This research was supported, in part, by grants from the Ontario Ministry of Health (DM-304) and the Ontario Mental Health Foundation (#652-76A).     

Effects of reinforcement on concept identification in hyperactive children

The effects of continuous and partial reward on the performance of hyperactive and normal children on a concept identification task were compared. Because reduction in information feedback is usually associated with partial reward schedules, the study was designed to yield information regarding the contribution of reduced feeback to performance in the partial reward condition. Previous findings of a performance deficit in hyperactives under partial reward were replicated. The findings help rule out an information feedback explanation for this deficit. The authors suggest that a motivational factor involving the elicitation of frustration when expected rewards fail to appear may be responsible for the poor performance of hyperactives on the partial schedule.This research was supported by Grant No. 943-03-34 from the Social Sciences Research Fund, McGill University.     

Processing Speed Weakness in Children and Adolescents with Non-Hyperactive but Inattentive ADHD (ADD)

DSM-IV-TR defines ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive as allowing up to five symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity, while theories of the inattentive type usually assume a group that is hypoactive and characterized by processing speed and cognitive interference deficits. In a community-recruited sample of 572 children and adolescents, a pure inattentive subtype of ADHD (ADD) was defined as those who met DSM-IV-TR criteria for ADHD-PI but had two or fewer hyperactive/impulsive symptoms. Processing and output speeds of those with ADD were compared to those identified with DSM-IV-TR ADHD combined type and non-ADHD controls. These results were then contrasted with those found when DSM-IV-TR defined ADHD-PI was compared with ADHD-C and controls. Processing and output speed were assessed with the Trailmaking A and B and the Stroop Naming Tests. Cognitive interference control was assessed with the interference score from the Stroop Task. Slower cognitive interference speed was found in the ADD vs. ADHD-C and controls comparisons, but not the ADHD-PI versus ADHD-C and controls comparisons. On output speed measures, ADD exhibited the slowest performance, significantly different from controls and the effect size for the set-shifting speed contrast (Trailmaking B) was double that of the ADHD-PI vs. control comparison. ADHD-Inattentive type as defined by the DSM-IV-TR is a heterogeneous condition with a meaningful proportion of those affected exhibiting virtually no hyperactive/impulsive symptoms. This subgroup may represent a distinct inattentive condition characterized by poor cognitive interference control and slow processing or output speed.