Inhibitory Control in a Stop-Signal Task : Elementary School Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder or Pervasive Developmental Disorder

Abstract

The present research used a stop-signal task to investigate inhibitory control in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; N = 11; average age 9.6 years), children with pervasive developmental disorder (FDD; N = 6; average age, 10.5 years) who did not have intellectual disabilities, and control children without disabilities (N=10; average age, 10.1 years). In the stop-signal task, participants were instructed to stop their prepotent response to a "go" signal only when a "stop" signal followed it. The reaction time to "go" signals, response variability, and error and omission rates, as well as probability of inhibition, were compared among the 3 groups of children. The results revealed that the children with ADHD had specific problems with response inhibition in the experimental task, whereas the children with FDD did not have as large a significant difference compared to the control group children. From the point of view of response inhibition, the performance of the children with FDD could be divided into 2 types. This enabled a distinction of characteristics of inhibitory control in children with FDD compared to those with ADHD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)(journal abstract)