Dichotic listening and response inhibition in children with comorbid anxiety disorders and ADHD

Objective: To compare children with comorbid anxiety disorders (ANX) and at tention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with children with either pur e disorder and normal controls on 2 cognitive measures to elucidate the cog nitive basis of this comorbidity. Method: Four groups of children aged 8 to 12 years (n = 64 total) were assessed: ANX, ADHD, both conditions (comorbi d group), and neither condition (normal control group). Groups were compare d on 2 cognitive measures: a measure of auditory emotional perception (dich otic listening task) and a measure of response inhibition (stop task), chos en for their relative specificity for ANX and ADHD, respectively, in previo us studies. Results: Multivariate analyses of variance revealed significant group differences on the dichotic listening task (p < .05), with the comor bid group differing from the control group on emotion targets (p < .01) and the ADHD group differing from the control group on word targets (p < .05). On the stop task, the ADHD group appeared slower than the other diagnostic groups on both go and stop-signal reaction times, but differences were not significant. Conclusions: In this study, children with comorbid ANX and AD HD showed reduced auditory emotion recognition relative to controls but did not show response inhibition deficits. Thus they appeared cognitively dist inct from children with either pure disorder.