Electroencephalographic and psychometric differences between boys with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A pilot study

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is reported to have an incidence of 3-5%, and is associated with a variety of interpersonal, academic, and social problem behaviors. There is controversy as To whether ADHD is a learned behavioral or by ain dysfunction. Research has explored a variety of measures to assess behavioral and brain dysfunctions in this population, with no consistent and clearly diagnostic results. We investigated whether a new psychometric and a new electroencephalographic procedure would clearly differentiate ADHD. The psychometric was based on DSM-IV criteria and the EEG measure was based on the assumption that ADHD interferes with cognitive transition from one discrete task to another. Parents of four ADHD boys (ages 8-12) and four age- and interest-matched non-ADHD boys completed the ADHD Symptom Inventory, while their sons' EEG was monitored during viewing of a video and reading of a book. For the ADHD boys, this was repeated a second time, 3 months later, to assess test-retest reliability. Both the psychometric and the EEG measures clearly differentiated the two samples (p's <.01) with no overlap in scores, were reliable over 3 months (r =.87), and were significantly correlated with one another (r =.85). While a small sample size, these robust, related and reliable findings suggest that both the psychometric and the psychophysiological EEG measures deserve further replication and exploration.