Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the executive functions in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to normal children.
Method: Twenty children which were diagnosed as having ADHD according to DSM-IV were compared with 19 healthy children in terms of executive functions using the computerized version of Tower of London, Continuous Performance Test (CPT), and Stroop Color Test.
Results: In the Tower of London task, the performance of ADHD children was worse than that in normal children, which was significant at level 3 and 1 of the Tower of London task (p< 0.05). In the Continuous Performance Test, the commission errors in ADHD children were significantly more than that in normal group (p< 0.01). The omission errors in ADHD children were higher but not significantly. In the Stroop Color Test, there was no significant difference between two groups in terms of difference index (which is the subtraction of dots time from colors time), but the time taken to name the colors was significantly higher in ADHD group in all three cards.
Conclusion: Some aspects of executive functions such as planning and inhibition were impaired in ADHD children compared to normal children. In this study we did not find any significant difference in attention index in CPT.
Type of Study:
Research |
Subject:
Special Received: 2002/11/22 | Accepted: 2003/01/21 | Published: 2003/03/21