Executive Functioning and Emotion Regulation in Children with and without ADHD.

Difficulties with emotion regulation affect the majority of youth with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and predict greater functional impairment than ADHD symptoms alone. Deficits in executive functioning are also present for most children with ADHD, and have been linked with emotion regulation difficulties in both clinical and neurotypical populations throughout development. The current study was the first to assess all three core executive functions (working memory, inhibitory control, set shifting) simultaneously in a clinically-diverse sample of children with and without ADHD and common comorbidities and investigate the extent to which they uniquely predict emotion dysregulation.

Executive functioning rating scales: Ecologically valid or construct invalid?

Objective: Executive functions are commonly measured using rating scales and performance tests. However, replicated evidence indicates weak/nonsignificant cross-method associations that suggest divergent rather than convergent validity. The current study is the first to investigate the relative concurrent and predictive validities of executive function tests and ratings using (a) multiple gold-standard performance tests, (b) multiple standardized rating scales completed by multiple informants, and (c) both performance-based and ratings-based assessment of academic achievement-a key functional outcome with strong theoretical links to executive function.

A randomized controlled trial of central executive training (CET) versus inhibitory control training (ICT) for ADHD.

Objective: Executive function deficits are well-established in ADHD. Unfortunately, replicated evidence indicates that executive function training for ADHD has been largely unsuccessful. We hypothesized that this may reflect insufficient targeting, such that extant protocols do not sufficiently and specifically target the neurocognitive systems associated with phenotypic ADHD behaviors/impairments.

Evidence against emotion inference deficits in children with ADHD.

Inconsistent evidence suggests that pediatric attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be associated with impairments in the ability to use context clues to infer the emotion states of others. However, the evidence base for these impairments is comprised of data from laboratory-based tests of emotion inference that may be confounded by demands on nonaffective cognitive processes that have been linked with ADHD. The current study builds on our previous study of facial affect recognition to address this limitation and investigate a potential mechanism underlying children's ability to infer emotion state from context clues.

An Examination of Relations Among Working Memory, ADHD Symptoms, and Emotion Regulation.

Emotion regulation difficulties are present in many, if not most, children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and confer risk for a host of adverse outcomes. Little is known, however, regarding the neurocognitive and behavioral mechanisms that underlie these difficulties. A well-characterized, clinically evaluated sample of 145 children ages 8-13 years (M = 10.

Working memory and information processing in ADHD: Evidence for directionality of effects.

Objective: Children with ADHD demonstrate impaired performance on a wide range of neuropsychological tests. It is unclear, however, whether ADHD is associated with many neurocognitive deficits or whether a small number of impairment(s) broadly influence test performance. The current study tests competing model predictions regarding two candidate causal mechanisms in ADHD: information processing speed and working memory.

Can working memory training work for ADHD? Development of central executive training and comparison with behavioral parent training.

Objective: Working memory deficits have been linked experimentally and developmentally with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-related symptoms/impairments. Unfortunately, substantial evidence indicates that extant working memory training programs fail to improve these symptoms/impairments. We hypothesized that this discrepancy may reflect insufficient targeting, such that extant protocols do not adequately engage the specific working memory components linked with the disorder's behavioral/functional impairments.

Are emotion recognition abilities intact in pediatric ADHD?

Extant studies suggest that children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may make more errors and respond more slowly on tasks that require them to identify emotions based on facial affect. It is unclear, however, whether these findings reflect a unique deficit in emotion recognition, or more general difficulty with choice-response tasks (i.e.

Social Problems in ADHD: Is it a Skills Acquisition or Performance Problem?

Recent models suggest that social skills training's inefficacy for children with ADHD may be due to target misspecification, such that their social problems reflect inconsistent performance rather than knowledge/skill gaps. No study to date, however, has disentangled social skills acquisition from performance deficits in children with ADHD. Children ages 8-12 with ADHD (=47) and without ADHD (=23) were assessed using the well-validated social behavioral analysis framework to quantify cross-informant social skills acquisition deficits, performance deficits, and strengths.

Do Working Memory Deficits Underlie Reading Problems in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)?

Reading problems are common in children with ADHD and show strong covariation with these children's underdeveloped working memory abilities. In contrast, working memory training does not appear to improve reading performance for children with ADHD or neurotypical children. The current study bridges the gap between these conflicting findings, and combines dual-task methodology with Bayesian modeling to examine the role of working memory for explaining ADHD-related reading problems.

ADHD, depression, and motor vehicle crashes: A prospective cohort study of continuously-monitored, real-world driving.

ADHD is associated with automobile crashes, traffic fatalities, and serious road trauma, but it is unclear whether this risk is (a) driven by ADHD symptoms specifically, and (b) unique to ADHD or transdiagnostic across psychiatric disabilities, such as depression, that also have concentration problems as core symptoms. The current study provides the first prospective, continuously-monitored evaluation of crash risk related to ADHD symptoms, including the first on-road comparison of ADHD with another high-prevalence psychiatric disability (depression). A probability-based sample of 3226 drivers from six U.

Assessing working memory in children with ADHD: Minor administration and scoring changes may improve digit span backward's construct validity.

Background: Pediatric ADHD is associated with impairments in working memory, but these deficits often go undetected when using clinic-based tests such as digit span backward.

Aims: The current study pilot-tested minor administration/scoring modifications to improve digit span backward's construct and predictive validities in a well-characterized sample of children with ADHD.

Methods And Procedures: WISC-IV digit span was modified to administer all trials (i.

Heterogeneity in ADHD: Neurocognitive predictors of peer, family, and academic functioning.

Childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with impairments in peer, family, and academic functioning. Although impairment is required for diagnosis, children with ADHD vary significantly in the areas in which they demonstrate clinically significant impairment. However, relatively little is known about the mechanisms and processes underlying these individual differences.

Is hyperactivity ubiquitous in ADHD or dependent on environmental demands? Evidence from meta-analysis.

Hyperactivity, or excess gross motor activity, is considered a core and ubiquitous characteristic of ADHD. Alternate models question this premise, and propose that hyperactive behavior reflects, to a large extent, purposeful behavior to cope with environmental demands that interact with underlying neurobiological vulnerabilities. The present review critically evaluates the ubiquity and environmental modifiability of hyperactivity in ADHD through meta-analysis of 63 studies of mechanically measured activity level in children, adolescents, and adults with ADHD relative to typically developing groups.

Working Memory and Increased Activity Level (Hyperactivity) in ADHD: Experimental Evidence for a Functional Relation.

Objective: Converging evidence indicates large magnitude deficits in the "working" component of working memory for children with ADHD. However, our understanding of the relation between these central executive deficits and ADHD behavioral symptoms remains limited due to problems with several commonly used working memory tests.

Method: Children with ADHD ( = 25) completed a counterbalanced series of working memory tasks that differed only in memory set predictability.