Time-Based Prospective Memory Performance and Time-Monitoring in Children with ADHD

The current study investigated prospective memory (PM) performance in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and controls and aimed at exploring possible underlying factors of PM performance. Twenty-two children with ADHD and 39 age- and ability-matched typically developing children performed a computerized time-based PM task. As predicted, children with ADHD had fewer correct PM responses than controls. Neither differences in overall ongoing task performance nor, remarkably, differences in overall frequency and accuracy of time monitoring were found. Exploratory analyses suggest that individual differences in time monitoring in the final interval before target times may be related to PM performance in ADHD.     

Statistics and suspension

Philosophical Studies - It has recently been argued that some cases of naked statistical evidence license a high credence, but not an outright belief. If this is correct, there cannot be an...     

Visuospatial Short-Term Memory Explains Deficits in Tower Task Planning in High-Functioning Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Previous findings on planning abilities in individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFA) are inconsistent. Exploring possible reasons for these mixed findings, the current study investigated the involvement of memory in planning performance in 15 children with HFA and 17 typically developing controls. In addition to planning abilities (measured with the Tower of London), short-term memory and delayed recall for verbal as well as visuospatial material were assessed. Findings suggest that particularly reduced efficiency in visuospatial short-term memory is associated with Tower task planning deficits in children with HFA.     

Children's initial sleep‐associated changes in motor skill are unrelated to long‐term skill levels

Sleep is considered to support the formation of skill memory. In juvenile but not adult song birds learning a tutor's song, a stronger initial deterioration of song performance over night‐sleep predicts better song performance in the long run. This and similar observations have stimulated the view of sleep supporting skill formation during development in an unsupervised off‐line learning process that, in the absence of external feedback, can initially also enhance inaccuracies in skill performance. Here we explored whether in children learning a motor sequence task, as in song‐learning juvenile birds, changes across sleep after initial practice predict performance levels achieved in the long run. The task was a serial reaction time task (SRTT) where subjects had to press buttons which were lighted up in a repeating eight‐element sequence as fast as possible. Twenty‐five children (8–12 years) practised the task in the evening before nocturnal sleep which was recorded polysomnographically. Retrieval was tested on the following morning and again 1 week later after daily training on the SRTT. As expected, changes in response speed over the initial night of sleep were negatively correlated with final performance speed after the 1‐week training. However, unlike in song birds, this correlation was driven by the baseline speed level achieved before sleep. Baseline‐corrected changes in speed or variability over the initial sleep period did not predict final performance on the trained SRTT sequence, or on different sequences introduced to assess generalization of the trained behaviour. The lack of correlation between initial sleep‐dependent changes and long‐term performance might reflect that the children were too experienced for the simple SRTT, possibly also favouring ceiling effects in performance. A consistent association found between sleep spindle activity and explicit sequence knowledge alternatively suggests that the expected correlation was masked by explicit memory systems interacting with skill memory formation.