Neuropsychological functions among adolescents with persistent, subsyndromal and remitted attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
BACKGROUND
Previous studies have reported mixed results on neuropsychological deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and only a few studies have focused on adolescents. There is also a debate about whether the executive function (EF) impairments in ADHD are primary deficits or have some contribution from the underlying non-EF processes. The aim of this study was to investigate the impairments in EF and neuropsychological function with relatively low executive demand (low-EF) in adolescents with childhood diagnosis of ADHD as a function of current ADHD status.


METHODS
Psychiatric diagnostic interviews and computerized neuropsychological tests classified into EF and low-EF tasks were completed by 435 adolescents with a childhood diagnosis of ADHD (300 adolescents classified as persistent ADHD, 109 as subsyndromal ADHD and 26 as remitted ADHD based on the current diagnosis) and 263 typically developing (TD) adolescents.


RESULTS
There were significant EF (spatial working memory, spatial planning and verbal working memory) and low-EF (signal detectability, spatial span and visual recognition memory) impairments in persistent and subsyndromal ADHD. The impairments in EF were independent of low-EF despite significant moderate correlations between any two of these tasks. Adolescents with remitted ADHD showed no deficit in either EF or low-EF.


CONCLUSIONS
This study suggests that adolescents with persistent and subsyndromal ADHD have EF and low-EF impairments that might contribute to ADHD independently.
Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan.
Y J
YJ
Lin
Graduate Institute of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
W J
WJ
Chen
Department of Psychiatry, National Taiwan University Hospital and College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan.
S S
SS
Gau
D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000145:classification / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*