Richard Welsh

Comprehension of Televised Stories in Boys With Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Nonreferred Boys

Two studies compared comprehension of televised stories by 7- to 12-year-old boys with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and nonreferred comparison boys. Boys watched one show with toys present and one with toys absent. Visual attention was continuously recorded, and recall was tested after each show. Across studies, visual attention was high with toys absent but decreased sharply with toys present for boys with ADHD. Groups showed similar levels of cued recall of discrete units of information regardless of differences in attention. When recall tasks and television story structure required knowledge of relations among events, the reduced attention of boys with ADHD interfered with recall. Although visual attention of comparison boys also decreased to some extent with toys present, there was no such decrement in recall. Implications of the difficulties children with ADHD have in integrated story comprehension are discussed.

Difficulties in Comprehending Causal Relations Among Children With ADHD: The Role of Cognitive Engagement

The present study examined whether time spent in long looks (i.e., >or=15 s), an index of cognitive engagement, would account for differences between children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comparison children in understanding causal relations. Children viewed two televised stories, once in the presence of toys and once in their absence. Dependent variables were visual attention and questions tapping factual information and causal relations. Comparison children answered significantly more causal relations questions than did the children with ADHD, but only in the toys-present condition. Four lines of evidence revealed that the difficulties children with ADHD had in answering causal relations questions in the toys-present condition could be linked specifically to this groups decreased time spent in long looks.

On-line story representation in boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) face an increased risk of poor achievement in school. Thus, knowledge of the cognitive processing abilities of children with ADHD is critical to understanding and improving their academic performance. Although many studies have focused on the specific nature of the attention deficit experienced by children with ADHD, few have examined higher order cognitive processing such as comprehension of stories. The present study examined the processes of encoding story information, building a story representation, and modifying a story representation in boys with ADHD and nonreferred boys. Boys were asked to narrate a story from a picture book twice. Boys with ADHD showed deficits in representing goals and goal plans in their narrations, as compared to nonreferred boys. Boys with ADHD also committed more errors than nonreferred boys, but did correct certain types of errors on their second telling. Implications are discussed in terms of future research needed to identify the cognitive deficits that account for these narrative deficits.

Hyperactivity and child abuse

The role of a child in his/her physical abuse was reviewed with particular attention to hyperactive children. A retrospective analysis of the records of children referred to a university-based hyperactive childrens clinic revealed that children both with and without Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) were more often physically abused than children in the general population. The period prevalence of physical abuse in children with ADD did not differ significantly from that in children without ADD. This suggests that hyperactivity may either contribute to, or result from, physical abuse.

Attention deficit disorder in three pairs of monozygotic twins: a case report

Three pairs of monozygotic twins, all concordant for attention deficit disorder, are reported. The literature on the genetic implications of attention deficit disorder is reviewed, including twin, family and adoption studies. The effect of prematurity, abuse and neglect on the twins in this report is also discussed.

Methylphenidate Plasma Concentrations in Chronically and Acutely Treated Latency-Age Children

In 5 latency-age boys, methylphenidate plasma concentrations following multiple doses of methylphenidate were consistently higher than those obtained after a single dose. Pharmacological and clinical implications are discussed.

An Unexpected Traumatic Change in Life: Where to Go from Here?

Trauma exists in two, often interlocking forms: psychological and physical. Psychological trauma can be succinctly defined as “a psychic or behavioral state resulting from mental or emotional stress or physical injury” (Ehde and Williams 2006. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (American Psychiatric Association 2000) provides the criteria of a traumatic event to involve “either the experiencing or witnessing” of “an event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others” (American Psychiatric Association 1994). It is significant to note that a traumatic event will cause only a proportion of individuals who experience such an event to become traumatized. Estimates suggest that 14% of people living in the United States will develop post-traumatic stress disorder in their lifetime (Yehuda 1999). Although this reveals a high prevalence of the disorder, it actually represents only a small sector of people who experience a traumatic life event, given the fact that most people will experience such an event of some kind during their life. For this chapter, the act of “becoming traumatized” will be clinically referred to as “experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.”