This study examined selective attention and sustained attention in children with ADHD. Performance of 10-year-old boys on a visual cueing task was examined as a measure of selective attention. A subset of the original participants returned for a second study, during which they completed the Conners' Continuous Performance Test (CPT) as a measure of sustained attention. The results of this investigation suggest a dissociation between selective and sustained attention abilities in children with ADHD. Specifically, children with ADHD were able to perform as well as non-ADHD children on the selective attention task, while their performance on the sustained attention task indicated an impairment. These findings have important implications for designing academic interventions for children with ADHD. Additionally, these findings regarding the cognitive deficits associated with ADHD may be useful in guiding research investigating possible neuroanatomical dysfunction in ADHD.
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Tammy DeShazo Barry, Laura Grofer Klinger, Robert D. Lyman, and Lauren Hawkins are with the Department of Psychology, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL.
