Information processing as assessed by the mini attention test battery in attention deficit heyperactivity disorder

This cross-sectional study is designed to evaluate the information processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) subjects with the aid of neuropsychological assessment. The study group was consisted from 105 children (F:27, M: 78) with in the ages of 6- 11 years, who were attending the first five grades of the elementary school and were diagnosed as ADHD according to DSM-IV criteria. Subjects with a total IQ score of less then 70 or those having comorbid conditions other than Conduct and Oppositional Defiant Disorder were excluded. All of the subjects were drug naive for psychotropic medication. The control group was consisted from 100 children (F: 49, M: 51), attending the first five grades of 2 different elementary school in Ankara city center. Conners Teacher and Parent Rating Scales were used to collect information from different sources in the patient group, while the neurocognitive functions were evaluated using the WISC-R and B-G Tests. The neuropsychological functions were assessed by the use of VADS-R, Stroop Test and Verbal-Nonverbal Cancellation Tests (Mini Attention Test Batary/ MATB). The study group demonstrated lower scores on neuropsychological performance in MATB tests, when compared to controls. However, the test scores were influenced by the age-related developmental changes in both the patient and in the control group. Relative to boys; girl patients scored lower in some substests of WISC-R and VADS-R. The neuropsychological tests used in this study however did not differentiate the clinical subtypes of ADHD from each other. According to our results, the cognitive deficits in ADHD may be related to a disfunction involving diverse and complex neuroanatomic networks, especially frontal and parietal regions; also involving their cortical and subcortical projections.