Korean J Biol Psychiatry.  2010 May;17(2):70-78.

Comparison of Working Memory Among the Subtypes of Child and Adolescent Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

• Lee SI
• Lim EJ
• Park JH
• Jung HY

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
This study investigated the differences of working memory among the subtypes of ADHD.
METHODS
Eighty-one children and adolescents with ADHD and thirty normal controls were recruited. Children with any cognitive disorders and low intelligence were excluded. In order to evaluate the verbal and visuospatial working memory, Digit span and Finger windows tasks were measured, respectively. Performances on these measures between children with ADHD and controls were compared. Further, performances among the groups of ADHD predominantly inattentive(ADHD-IA)(n=40), predominantly hyperactive-impulsive(ADHD-HI)(n=10), and combined type(ADHD-C)(n=31), were compared.
RESULTS
Scores of Finger windows forward task were lower in the ADHD group as compared to the control group, whereas, the Digit span forward showed no difference. Both scores of Digit span backward and Finger windows backward task were lower in the ADHD group than the controls. Children with ADHD-IA performed poorer than children with ADHD-C on the Finger windows backward task.
CONCLUSION
The results of this study showed that children with ADHD have deficits in spatial short-term memory and verbal and visuospatial working memory when compared to normal children. The deficits were evident in children with ADHD-IA subtype and in particular, performance on the visuospatial working memory task in this group was poorer than the ADHD-C group.

Keyword

ADHD; Child and adolescent; Working memory; Digit span; Finger windows task

MeSH Terms

Adolescent
Child
Fingers
Humans
Intelligence
Memory, Short-Term