Self-regulation of stimulation for ADD-H children during reading and vigilance task performance

The present study examines the hypothesis that motor responses added into rote tasks would modulate the sensation-seeking activity and impulsive errors of hyperactive (ADD-H) children. To this purpose 22 ADD-H and 25 comparison children were administered two repetitive tasks (word decoding and an auditory vigilance task) under both an active response and a passive response condition. Findings were that the impulsive errors, talking/noise-making, and activity of ADD-H children was normalized (i.e., did not differ from comparison children) only in the high stimulation active response conditions. Behavioral improvements for ADD-H children were documented in both tasks in the active condition, but performance gains were found only in the vigilance task. The findings supported predictions derived from the optimal stimulation theory that the excessive activity and attraction to novel stimuli of ADD-H children can be channeled into appropriate instrumental motor and attention responses.We thank Anne Dwyer for her help with data collection, and Phyllis Kikendall, Sylvia Kottler, Joe Boggs, and Cheryl Wieczorek for their assistance at various stages of this project. We are also most grateful to Martha Eger and to the teachers, Sally Schnieder and Denise Oliver, of West Central Joint Special Services, to Pat Welch of the Catholic Social Services, and to the teachers of St. Ann's School and St. Philip Neri School for their cooperation with this research.