PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH ATTENTION-DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER - PSYCHOLOGICAL AND ATTENTIONAL IMPAIRMENT

Biological parents of ADHD children were compared with parents of nonc linical children on measures of psychological impairment and attention al performance. Parents of children with severe ADHD demonstrated grea ter impairment in social and psychological functioning. However, no si gnificant differences were found on laboratory measures of sustained a ttention, memory, cognitive flexibility, encoding, or impulsivity. The possibility that parental adjustment would be more usefully assessed by measures of current adaptive functioning than by means of laborator y tests is discussed.