Neuropsychological evidence for intact verbal but impaired spatial working memory in ADHD
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1
Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
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2
Section of Psychiatry, Division of Pathology and Neuroscience, University of Dundee, United Kingdom
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is characterised by pervasive inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity and is prevalent in around 3-5% of children. Dysfunction of executive neuropsychological functioning e.g. working memory (WM), mediated by the prefrontal cortex, has been the central focus of recent ADHD research. Previous research conducted by our group has suggested that children with ADHD may be impaired in spatial WM. The aim of the current study was to characterise WM functioning in ADHD using tasks specifically designed to tap both verbal and spatial executive and non-executive components of WM. Forty drug-naïve children (all boys) with ADHD (mean age: 9.77, age range:7-13) and sex and age-matched controls participated in the study. All children were assessed on a vocabulary task (BPVS II), and on specifically designed verbal and spatial WM component tasks. They also completed a range of standardized neuropsychological WM tasks from the CANTAB battery, including the Spatial Span, Spatial Recognition Memory, Spatial Working Memory, Delayed Matching to Sample, and Verbal Recognition Memory tasks. Children with ADHD were impaired on spatial but not verbal WM component tasks. Performance on standardized neuropsychological verbal and spatial WM tasks from the CANTAB battery corroborated these findings. Children with ADHD showed no impairment on either the recognition memory or free recall measures of the Verbal Recognition Memory task. In contrast, they showed significant impairment on all of the spatial WM tasks, measuring spatial span, recognition memory, and executive WM. The current data adds to evidence of WM impairment in ADHD suggesting that children with the disorder may have particular difficulties in spatial WM.
Conference:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Memory & Learning
Citation:
Rhodes
SM,
Park
J,
Seth
SA and
Coghill
DR
(2008). Neuropsychological evidence for intact verbal but impaired spatial working memory in ADHD.
Conference Abstract:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.300
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Received:
10 Dec 2008;
Published Online:
10 Dec 2008.
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Correspondence:
Sinead M Rhodes, Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, United Kingdom, s.m.rhodes@stir.ac.uk