COVERT VISUAL-ATTENTION IN CHILDREN WITH ATTENTION-DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER - EVIDENCE FOR DEVELOPMENTAL IMMATURITY

Shifts in covert visual attention were compared in children with and w ithout Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to determine if children with ADHD have developmental immaturities in covert attentio n, relative to their non-ADHD peers. Children were told to orient atte ntion to a central fixation point and were then cued, by both central and peripheral cues, to direct their attention to either the left or r ight peripheral fields. Following variable time intervals, the target appeared and reaction times and errors were recorded. Although perform ance of all subjects showed faciliation when attention was directed by valid cues and inhibition when attention was directed by invalid cues , the performance of children with ADHD was far more disrupted when th eir attention was misled by invalid cues, especially at longer interva ls. This inconsistency was reflected in significantly higher error rat es in the ADHD group. They also showed a pattern of attentional ''waxi ng and waning'' in performance over longer time intervals that has bee n previously found in auditory attention switching over time within tr ials in children with ADHD. Overall, results are inconsistent with dev elopmentally immature covert attention skills in ADHD. Findings are di scussed in terms of the concept of global ''developmental immaturity'' in the attention skills of children with ADHD.