Electroencephalographic and psychometric differences between boys with and without attention-deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a pilot study.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is reported to have an incidence of 3-5%, and is associated with a variety of interpersonal, academic, and social problem behaviors. There is controversy as to whether ADHD is a learned behavioral or brain dysfunction. Research has explored a variety of measures to assess behavioral and brain dysfunctions in this population, with no consistent and clearly diagnostic results. We investigated whether a new psychometric and a new electroencephalographic procedure would clearly differentiate ADHD. The psychometric was based on DSM-IV criteria and the EEG measure was based on the assumption that ADHD interferes with cognitive transition from one discrete task to another. Parents of four ADHD boys (ages 8-12) and four age- and interest-matched non-ADHD boys completed the ADHD Symptom Inventory, while their sons' EEG was monitored during viewing of a video and reading of a book. For the ADHD boys, this was repeated a second time, 3 months later, to assess test-retest reliability. Both the psychometric and the EEG measures clearly differentiated the two samples (p's < .01) with no overlap in scores, were reliable over 3 months (r = .87), and were significantly correlated with one another (r = .85). While a small sample size, these robust, related and reliable findings suggest that both the psychometric and the psychophysiological EEG measures deserve further replication and exploration.
Cox
D J
DJ
University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville 22908, USA.
Kovatchev
B P
BP
Morris
J B
JB
Phillips
C
C
Hill
R J
RJ
Merkel
L
L
D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000145:classification / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D004569:Electroencephalography; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011594:Psychometrics; D011932:Reading; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results