Date of Award

1996

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Subjects consisted of 107 children with ADHD symptoms. All children were off medication at the time of the evaluation for ADHD symptoms. The relationship among scores from the Continuous Performance Test (CPT), the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT), and the attention problem factor scale of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was examined. A principal-components analysis with varimax rotation was used to determine the number of factors that accounted for the majority of the variance in the data set. Results of the study indicated that commission error scores related significantly with slow mean hit reaction time, poor ability to discriminate targets and nontargets, and inconsistent responding, suggesting commission error variable is a measure of inattention in this study. Three factors emerged to account for 75.1% of the variance in the data set: (1) inconsistent responding, (2) inattention, and (3) reflectivity. Inconsistent responding, less responding than usual to targets, and poor ability to discriminate targets and nontargets variables loaded positively on Factor 1, with slow mean hit reaction time variable loading negatively on Factor 1. Inattention, average scores on commission error variable, slow mean hit reaction time, and poor ability to discriminate targets and nontargets are the variables that comprised Factor 2. Less responding than normal to targets, an average number of error on the MFFT, and longer than average mean latencies to first response on the MFFT variable loaded on Factor 3. Implications of findings for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

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