Theoretical models describe working memory difficulties as risk factors and/or outcomes of anxiety in children, but the current evidence base is surprisingly mixed. Understanding the nature of the working memory/anxiety relation is complicated by the multi-component nature of each of these constructs. Consideration of the co-occurrence of anxiety with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is also imperative given that ADHD is associated with large magnitude working memory impairments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) demonstrate deficits across academic domains including underachievement in math. Proposed models of math skill development suggest that math difficulties may be associated with both neurocognitive (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit difficulties with organizational skills such as task planning, managing materials, and organizing activities that have downstream consequences on academic functioning. At the same time, deficits in working memory have been linked with both the organizational skills difficulties and academic underachievement and underperformance observed in children with ADHD and have been hypothesized to account for the link between organizational and academic functioning. However, the extent to which working memory and organizational skills independently versus jointly contribute to ADHD-related academic difficulties remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Children with ADHD demonstrate difficulties on many different neuropsychological tests. However, it remains unclear whether this pattern reflects a large number of distinct deficits or a small number of deficit(s) that broadly impact test performance. The current study is among the first experiments to systematically manipulate demands on both working memory and inhibition, with implications for competing conceptual models of ADHD pathogenesis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRes Child Adolesc Psychopathol
May 2024
Objective: Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently demonstrate deficits in working memory and in multiple domains of math skills, including underdeveloped problem-solving and computation skills. The Baddeley model of working memory posits a multicomponent system, including a domain-general central executive and two domain-specific subsystems-phonological short-term memory and visuospatial short-term memory. Extant literature indicates a strong link between neurocognitive deficits in working/short-term memory and math skills; however, the extent to which each component of working/short-term memory may account for this relation is unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe 'simple view of reading' is an influential model of reading comprehension which asserts that children's reading comprehension performance can be explained entirely by their decoding and language comprehension skills. Children with ADHD often exhibit difficulty across all three of these reading domains on standardized achievement tests, yet it is unclear whether the simple view of reading is sufficient to explain reading comprehension performance for these children. The current study was the first to use multiple indicators and latent estimates to examine the veracity of key predictions from the simple view of reading in a clinically-evaluated sample of 250 children with and without ADHD (ages 8-13, M=10.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The current randomized controlled trial (RCT) was the first to examine the benefits of central executive training (CET, which trains the components of working memory [WM]) for reducing organizational skills difficulties relative to a carefully matched neurocognitive training intervention (inhibitory control training [ICT]).
Method: A carefully phenotyped sample of 73 children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity-impulsivity disorder (ADHD; ages 8-13, = 10.15, = 1.
Introduction: Approximately 48-54% of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have impairing difficulties with emotion regulation, and these difficulties are not ameliorated by first-line ADHD treatments. Working memory and inhibitory control represent promising intervention targets given their functional, if not causal, links with ADHD-related emotion dysregulation.
Methods: This preregistered randomized controlled trial tested whether two digital therapeutic training protocols that have been previously shown to improve working memory (Central Executive Training [CET]) and inhibitory control (Inhibitory Control Training [ICT]) can improve emotion regulation in a sample of 94 children with ADHD aged 8-13 years ( = 10.
J Atten Disord
January 2023
Objective: Utilizing a multi-level meta-analytic approach, this review is the first to systematically quantify the efficacy of reading interventions for school-aged children with ADHD and identify potential factors that may increase the success of reading-related interventions for these children.
Method: 18 studies (15 peer-reviewed articles, 3 dissertations) published from 1986 to 2020 ( = 564) were meta-analyzed.
Results: Findings revealed reading interventions are highly effective for improving reading skills based on both study-developed/curriculum-based measures ( = 1.
Objective: Central executive training (CET) is a "Level 2" evidence-based treatment for improving ADHD-related executive dysfunction and behavioral symptoms, but the extent to which these gains extend to the disorder's well-documented academic difficulties is unknown.
Method: Across two clinical trials, 108 children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) 8-13 years old ( = 10.29, = 1.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
March 2020
Previous research has focused on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) as a key brain region in the mitigation of the competition that arises from two simultaneously active signals. However, to date, no study has demonstrated that ACC is necessary for this form of behavioral flexibility, nor have any studies shown that ACC acts by modulating downstream brain regions such as the dorsal medial striatum (DMS) that encode action plans necessary for task completion. Here, we performed unilateral excitotoxic lesions of ACC while recording downstream from the ipsilateral hemisphere of DMS in rats, performing a variant of the STOP-signal task.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Work-related injuries have an impact on social security system of the country, on the victims as well as on their relatives. The objective is the aim of our study was to describe the different characteristics of work-related injuries reported to the Social Security Fund (CSS) in Dakar as well as the socioprofessional course of the victims.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study over a period of 5 years, from 2002 to 2006.