ADHD in Children
Visual Abstract
Multiple deficits in ADHD: executive dysfunction, delay aversion, reaction time variability, and emotional deficits
Effects of ADHD on Cognition and Emotion
Douglas Sjöwall , Linda Roth, Sofia Lindqvist, Lisa B Thorell
Summarized by:
May 31, 2023
study source
J Child Psychol Psychiatry
Jun 2013
🔎
What they studied
This study wanted to examine how ADHD affects cognition and emotion in children.
💡
What they found
Children with ADHD had widespread impacts to their response time variability and emotional regulation.
👩⚕️
What this means
This study shows the wide-ranging effects of ADHD in children.
Multiple deficits in ADHD: executive dysfunction, delay aversion, reaction time variability, and emotional deficits
Objectives
Experts have increasingly recognized that ADHD can affect more than just attention and hyperactivity. It’s been linked to cognition, behavior, and even mood differences.
This study wanted to examine how ADHD affects children's minds beyond its core symptoms, including its effects on emotions and behavior.
Study Quote
The notion that ADHD constitutes a heterogeneous disorder is well accepted. However, this study contributes with new important knowledge by examining independent effects of a large range of neuropsychological deficits. In addition, the study investigated whether deficits in emotional fun...
Show More
Methods
The study conducted standardized tests on 102 children with ADHD and a closely matched group without ADHD as a comparison.
The tasks tested the children’s neurological and psychological functioning.
Researchers also asked their parents about how well the children handled their emotions.
Study Quote
The study included children with ADHD (n = 102; 7-13 years) and a control sample individually matched with regard to age and gender. The administered tasks were designed to tap into three different neuropsychological domains: executive functions (i.e., working memory, inhibition, and shi...
Show More
Results
The results showed that over 2/3 of the children with ADHD in the study experienced cognitive impairments.
Around half experienced response time variability, the most common impairment in the study. For kids with ADHD, this can often indicate difficulties with attention and focus.
Executive function impairments were also common, consistent with other studies on executive functioning. ADHD.
“
We conclude that executive functioning deficits and high RT variability are important characteristics of some, but not all, children with ADHD. When studying specific functions, RT variability and inhibition appeared to be of greatest importance.
There was also evidence that children struggled with emotions.
Children with ADHD tended to struggle with recognizing emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, happiness, and surprise.
They also struggled to regulate their emotions.
These difficulties with recognition and regulation of emotions were significantly tied to ADHD status.
“
A third important contribution of this study was the result showing that regulation of both positive and negative emotions contributed independently to the prediction of ADHD status.
Study Quote
Children with ADHD differed significantly from controls on all measures, except for delay aversion and recognition of disgust. No main effects of gender or interaction effects of gender and group were found. More importantly, executive functioning, reaction time variability, and emotiona...
Show More
Conclusions
This study helped demonstrate the wide range of cognitive and emotional challenges faced by those with ADHD.
The cognitive tests showed widespread challenges with response time, which can affect how children perform on tests.
There was also evidence of significant emotional challenges, consistent with previous studies on ADHD and emotion.
“
The results emphasized the need to include not only executive functioning but also RT variability and emotional functioning in future theoretical models of ADHD as well as in clinical practice when identifying the major impairments in this diagnostic group.
Study Quote
The current study supports the view of ADHD as a heterogeneous disorder related to multiple neuropsychological deficits. In addition, emotional functioning appears to be an area of importance for ADHD that needs to be incorporated into future theoretical models.