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[Development of self-regulation and inhibition in children exhibiting attention deficit disorder with or without
H Poissant1, I Neault, S Dallaire
1Centre neurosciences cognitives, université du Québec à Montréal-case postale 8888, succursale Centre-Ville-Montréal (Québec) H3C 3P8, Canada. poissant.helene@uqam.ca
Insights
Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) struggle with self-regulation, particularly in understanding story inconsistencies. However, improved vigilance and attention with age correlate positively with better self-regulation in ADHD.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
Background:
- Self-regulation is closely linked to executive functions, but its specific deficits in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) require further clarification.
- Children typically develop self-control and internal language around age four, while those with ADHD exhibit challenges in modulating impulsive behaviors and delaying responses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate and evaluate the self-regulation of comprehension in children diagnosed with ADHD.
- To explore the relationship between self-regulation, behavioral inhibition, and attentional deficits in ADHD.
Main Methods:
- Assessed children with ADHD on their ability to recognize inconsistencies in presented stories.
- Utilized the Continuous Performance Test (CPT) to measure reaction times and assess attentional deficits.
- Correlated self-regulation control with behavioral inhibition measurements.
Main Results:
- Children with ADHD demonstrated significant difficulty in identifying story inconsistencies, with failure rates between 72% and 54% across age groups (8-10 years).
- A positive correlation was observed between enhanced self-regulation and improved behavioral inhibition.
- Longer reaction times on the CPT, indicative of attentional deficits, were linked to poorer self-regulation, while faster reaction times correlated with better vigilance and self-regulation.
Conclusions:
- Self-regulation processes in ADHD appear to improve with age, potentially due to the concurrent development of vigilance and attention.
- Optimal reaction times during self-regulation tasks are associated with improved vigilance and attention.
- While ADHD subjects show developmental trajectories similar to typical children, the study's lack of a control group prevents definitive conclusions on developmental delay; however, maturation, not intelligence, significantly influences self-regulation.
Introduction:
Self-regulation shares several affinities with executive functions. However, the specificity of self-regulation deficits in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) remains unclear. The typical child starts around the age of four to develop a self-control mechanism along with an internal language that allows the child to modulate impulsively. Conversely, a child with ADHD seems to have greater difficulties delaying or retaining an action or response.
Objective:
In this study we aim to evaluate self-regulation of comprehension in ADHD.
Results:
Our results show that children with ADHD fail to recognize inconsistencies in presented stories at a rate ranging between 72 (eight years) and 54% (ten years). We also found a positive correlation between a better control of self-regulation and our behavioral inhibition measurement. The attentional deficits exhibited through markedly longer reaction times to continuous performance test (CPT) could be responsible for a poor ability to self-regulate. Fast reaction times were found to be associated with increased vigilance/attention that in turn would permit better self-regulation. Furthermore, our findings show that older subjects with ADHD have shorter reaction times to CPT approaching this group to the typical children.
Discussion:
This suggests that improvement overtime in self-regulation processes may be attributed to the associated development of vigilance/attention in children with ADHD. Improved vigilance/attention would result in optimal reaction times during tasks that require self-regulation. In addition, our findings suggest that subjects with ADHD have developmental trajectories similar to those observed in healthy subjects.
Conclusion:
In the present study, the lack of a comparison group does not allow us to conclude if such trajectory is delayed compared to typical subjects. Finally, there was no significant relation between the degree of intelligence and the rate of self-regulation, which makes it possible to distinguish the two functions. However, in ADHD self-regulation is favourably influenced by age as observed in developmental studies on typical children. Thus, maturation independent of intelligence, influences self-regulation processes.
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