MULTIPLE SOURCES OF ATTENTIONAL DYSFUNCTION IN ADULTS WITH TOURETTES-SYNDROME - COMPARISON WITH ATTENTION-DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER

Seventeen adult Tourette's syndrome (TS) patients, 17 adult attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) patients, and 17 adult controls completed a battery of attentional tests and self-report measures of A DHD and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms. ADHD but not TS participants performed significantly worse than controls on tests of m ental flexibility and psychomotor speed. Both the ADHD and TS groups, however, had significantly greater test performance variability as wel l as several outliers on most of the measures. Among TS patients, thos e with comorbid ADHD performed significantly worse than TS patients wi thout ADHD on tests of mental flexibility and psychomotor speed, sugge sting ADHD-related attentional impairment in TS. In addition, greater amounts of OCD symptomatology were associated with poorer test perform ance among TS patients.