COGNITIVE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ANXIOUS, NORMAL, AND ADHD CHILDREN ON ADICHOTIC-LISTENING TASK

To compare the performance of children with anxiety disorders with tha t of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and normal controls in the processing of emotional information. A total o f 57 children ages 8 to 11 years (18 anxious, 20 ADHD, 19 normal contr ol) were administered a dichotic listening task for the detection of w ords and emotions. Comparisons of overall performance, false alarms, a nd a sensitivity index (which took false alarms into account) were don e using repeated measures analyses of variance. Anxious children made fewer false alarms for emotion targets compared to both ADHD children and normal controls, and fewer false alarms for words compared to norm al controls. When controlling for false alarms, their performance exce eded that of both ADHD children and normal controls. There were no gro up differences in correct responses. Performance on a dichotic listeni ng task differentiates anxious, ADHD, and normal children, particularl y when listening for emotional targets. Further studies using this tas k may therefore elucidate differences in the processing of words and e motions between these three groups of children. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, I nc.