SOMATOSENSORY FUNCTIONING IN CHILDREN WITH ATTENTION-DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER

In order to test the hypothesis that attention deficit hyperactivity d isorder (ADHD) is related to deficits in somatosensory processing, 49 ADHD male children and 49 matched controls were tested on a wide range of tactile tasks, and somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) were also recorded, In addition, parents' and teachers' ratings on the children 's typical responses to tactile stimuli were obtained, The results sho w that the ADHD children were less skilled on suprathreshold, but not on threshold tasks than were the controls, Further, a larger percentag e of ADHD children were 'tactile defensive', Finally, the ADHD childre n showed larger-than-normal amplitudes of late, but not early componen ts of the SEP, These data suggest that some aspects of somatosensory p rocessing by ADHD children are deficient.