Distractible children show abnormal orienting to non-attended auditory stimuli

EVENT-RELATED potentials were recorded in response to intermittently presen ted, non-attended trains of identical auditory stimuli in healthy 9-year-ol d children. In abnormally distractible children (n=24), the first tone in e ach train elicited a significantly larger N1 vertex response than in the no n-distractible children (n=24), suggesting that increased distractibility m ay be associated with an abnormally strong cerebral orienting towards non-a ttended stimuli. A later negativity at around 300 ms, which increases in am plitude with stimulus repetition and may thus reflect the building up of a functional neuronal representation of the stimulus properties, was signific antly smaller in the distractible than in the non-distractible children. Th ese findings demonstrate that event-related potential measures:may be usefu l in helping to understand the information processing found in distractible children. NeuroReport 10:1869-1874 (C) 1999 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.