Effortful control and executive attention in typical and atypical development: an event-related potential study

Executive attention and its relationship with effortful control (EC) were investigated in children with ADHD (n=24), autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n=20), and controls (n=21). Executive attention measures included flanker-performance and event-related potentials (N2, P3, and ERN). EC was assessed using questionnaires. Only the ERN was found to be robustly related to EC across groups. N2 did not differ between groups and only children with ADHD+ODD showed diminished executive attention as expressed in RT and P3. In ADHD, monitoring of incorrect (ERN) and correct (CRN) responses was diminished. Overall, the link between EC and executive attention was less strong as expected and varied depending on group and measure considered. All groups were able to detect conflict (N2) and all but ADHD+ODD were able to allocate extra attention in order to respond correctly (P3). Findings indicate a general reduced response monitoring in ADHD.