Executive functioning in children: a comparison of hospitalised ODD and ODD/ADHD children and normal controls.
BACKGROUND
Deficits in executive functioning are supposed to have a predisposing influence on impulsive or aggressive behaviour. We tested the hypothesis that oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) children with or without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have problems in executive functioning.


METHODS
Seventy-seven 7- to 12-year-old children (15 ODD, 26 ODD/ADHD, and 36 normal controls), all with normal IQ, completed 7 neuropsychological measures of executive functioning, assessing the abilities of set shifting, planning, working memory, inhibition/attention, and impulsivity. Some of these tasks involved the possibility of monetary rewards with a view to testing the prediction of a specific motivational inhibitory deficit.


RESULTS
We found no evidence of deficits in working memory, planning, inhibition, or impulsivity. However, the ODD/ADHD group was worse than the normal control (NC) group in set shifting, and both the ODD and ODD/ADHD groups performed worse on a response perseveration task. Moreover, on the basis of one variable derived from a motivational inhibition task, 77% of the children could be correctly classified as ODD or NC.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings do not support the hypothesis that ODD and ODD/ADHD children have a deficit in executive inhibitory control; rather, they emphasise that they have problems in regulating their behaviour under motivational inhibitory conditions.
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Medical Centre Utrecht, The Netherlands. shmv2@cam.ac.uk
Stephanie H M
SH
van Goozen
Peggy T
PT
Cohen-Kettenis
Heddeke
H
Snoek
Walter
W
Matthys
Hanna
H
Swaab-Barneveld
Herman
H
van Engeland
D001288:Attention; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000523:psychology*; D019958:Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests