Date of Award
2008
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Psychology
Abstract
The present study compared reaction time performance on a reading task for children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a Reading Disability (RD), and children without a diagnosis of ADHD or RD. It was hypothesized that children in the ADHD and RD groups would respond with different patterns of reaction time, providing information that may assist in differentiating between these two diagnostic groups. Participants included 70 children: 31 diagnosed with ADHD, 12 that met criteria for RD, and 27 children in a comparison group. Children with RD were expected to respond slower than children in the ADHD and comparison groups on reaction time tasks requiring discrimination between words/symbol strings and words/nonwords. Children with ADHD were expected to demonstrate greater variability in their responses to the reaction time tasks than children in the RD and comparison groups. Finally, it was hypothesized that children with ADHD would commit significantly more errors in their responses to the reaction time tasks than children in the RD and comparison groups. Contrary to hypotheses, children in the ADHD group were significantly slower in responding to words on a task requiring discrimination between words and nonwords than children in the RD and comparison groups. As expected, children in the ADHD group displayed greater variability in reaction time as compared to children in the RD and comparison groups. Children in both the ADHD and RD groups committed significantly more errors on both reaction time tasks than children in a comparison group. Further evaluation is necessary in order to determine if a lexical decision-making task can differentiate between clinical groups as well as identify deficits unique to each disorder.
Recommended Citation
Gay, Nathan M., "Reaction Time Performance Among Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder And Reading Disorder" (2008). All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1046.
https://scholars.indianastate.edu/etds/1046