Current Search: Orban, Sarah (x)
View All Items
- Title
- Inattentive behavior in boys with ADHD during classroom instruction: The mediating role of working memory processes.
- Creator
-
Orban, Sarah, Rapport, Mark, Beidel, Deborah, Cassisi, Jeffrey, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Children with ADHD exhibit clinically impairing inattentive behavior during classroom instruction and other cognitively demanding contexts. However, there have been surprisingly few attempts to validate anecdotal parent/teacher reports of intact sustained attention during 'preferred' activities such as watching movies. The current investigation addresses this omission, and provides an initial test of how ADHD-related working memory deficits contribute to inattentive behavior during classroom...
Show moreChildren with ADHD exhibit clinically impairing inattentive behavior during classroom instruction and other cognitively demanding contexts. However, there have been surprisingly few attempts to validate anecdotal parent/teacher reports of intact sustained attention during 'preferred' activities such as watching movies. The current investigation addresses this omission, and provides an initial test of how ADHD-related working memory deficits contribute to inattentive behavior during classroom instruction. Boys ages 8-12 (M=9.62, SD=1.22) with ADHD (n=32) and typically developing children (TD; n=30) completed a counterbalanced series of working memory tests and two videos on separate assessment days: an analogue math instructional video, and a non-instructional video selected to match the content and cognitive demands of parent/teacher-described 'preferred' activities. Objective, reliable observations of attentive behavior revealed no between-group differences during the non-instructional video (d=-0.02), and attentive behavior during the non-instructional video was unrelated to all working memory variables (r=-.11 to .19,ns). In contrast, the ADHD group showed disproportionate attentive behavior decrements during analogue classroom instruction (d=-0.71). Bias-corrected, bootstrapped, serial mediation revealed that 59% of this between-group difference was attributable to ADHD-related impairments in central executive working memory, both directly (ER=41%) and indirectly via its role in coordinating phonological short-term memory (ER=15%). Between-group attentive behavior differences were no longer detectable after accounting for ADHD-related working memory impairments (d=-0.29, ns). Results confirm anecdotal reports of intact sustained attention during activities that place minimal demands on working memory, and indicate that ADHD children's inattention during analogue classroom instruction is related, in large part, to their underdeveloped working memory abilities.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFE0006633, ucf:51290
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006633
- Title
- Do programs designed to train working memory, other executive functions, and attention benefit children with ADHD? A meta-analytic review of cognitive, academic, and behavioral outcomes.
- Creator
-
Orban, Sarah, Rapport, Mark, Beidel, Deborah, Cassisi, Jeffrey, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Children with ADHD are characterized frequently as possessing underdeveloped executive functions and sustained attentional abilities, and recent commercial claims suggest that computer-based cognitive training can remediate these impairments and provide significant and lasting improvement in their attention, impulse control, social functioning, academic performance, and complex reasoning skills. The present review critically evaluates these claims through meta-analysis of 25 studies of...
Show moreChildren with ADHD are characterized frequently as possessing underdeveloped executive functions and sustained attentional abilities, and recent commercial claims suggest that computer-based cognitive training can remediate these impairments and provide significant and lasting improvement in their attention, impulse control, social functioning, academic performance, and complex reasoning skills. The present review critically evaluates these claims through meta-analysis of 25 studies of facilitative intervention training (i.e., cognitive training) for children with ADHD. Random effects models corrected for publication bias and sampling error revealed that studies training short-term memory alone resulted in moderate magnitude improvements in short-term memory (d= 0.63), whereas training attention did not significantly improve attention and training mixed executive functions did not significantly improve the targeted executive functions (both nonsignificant: 95% confidence intervals include 0.0). Far transfer effects of cognitive training on academic functioning, blinded ratings of behavior (both nonsignificant), and cognitive tests (d= 0.14) were nonsignificant or negligible. Unblinded raters (d= 0.48) reported significantly larger benefits relative to blinded raters and objective tests (both p (<) .05), indicating the likelihood of Hawthorne effects. Critical examination of training targets revealed incongruence with empirical evidence regarding the specific executive functions that are (a) most impaired in ADHD, and (b) functionally related to the behavioral and academic outcomes these training programs are intended to ameliorate. Collectively, meta-analytic results indicate that claims regarding the academic, behavioral, and cognitive benefits associated with extant cognitive training programs are unsupported in ADHD. The methodological limitations of the current evidence base, however, leaves open the possibility that cognitive training techniques designed to improve empirically documented executive function deficits may benefit children with ADHD.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005040, ucf:49962
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005040