Biomedical subjects

Lisa Berlin

Publications and source records attributed to Lisa Berlin.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2004

How well do measures of inhibition and other executive functions discriminate between children with ADHD and controls?

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of Barkley's (1997a) model of inhibition and executive functioning in describing the deficits associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Besides group differences, the present study addressed the question of independent effects of inhibition and the other executive functions in discriminating between children with ADHD and controls and how well, in terms of sensitivity and specificity, these measures can classify the children into the correct group. The results showed that children with ADHD differed significantly from controls with regard to measures of inhibition as well as all other executive function measures, except repetition of hand movements. In logistic regression models, three different measures tapping inhibition, working memory and emotion regulation were shown to be significant independent predictors of group membership. The sensitivity for these three variables as a set was 76.2, the specificity was 90.5, with a total of 86% of the sample correctly classified. When excluding the parental rating of emotion regulation, the overall classification rate decreased some, but was still relatively high in comparison with previous studies within this area of research.

Arousal↗

PubMed2003

Emotionality, emotion regulation, and adaptation among 5- to 8-year-old children.

This study investigated relations between emotionality, emotion regulation, and children's behavioral adaptation in a longitudinal design. Mothers rated emotionality and emotion regulation related to anger, fear, and positive emotions-exuberance for 151 children at age 5 and later at age 6 years 6 months. Emotionality and emotion regulation measures were modestly related. Preschool ratings at age 6 (n = 125), maternal ratings at age 6 years 6 months (n = 133), and elementary school ratings at age 8 (n = 135) of problems and competence were also collected. High anger emotionality and low regulation of positive emotions and exuberance predicted externalizing problem behavior and prosocial behavior. High fear emotionality and low fear regulation predicted internalizing problem behavior. There were few interactive effects of emotionality and regulation.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2003

Relations between inhibition, executive functioning, and ADHD symptoms: a longitudinal study from age 5 to 8(1/2) years.

The present study examined whether inhibition measured as early as preschool can predict more general executive functioning and ADHD symptoms at school age. In contrast to previous studies, the present study focused specifically on ADHD symptoms rather than general disruptive behavior problems, and boys and girls were studied separately. The main result was that inhibition was strongly related to ADHD symptoms both in school and at home for boys, but only in the school context for girls. Early inhibition was also significantly related to later executive functioning, and concurrent relations were found between executive functioning and ADHD symptoms, although in both cases only for boys. Besides this, inhibition added significantly to the variance, beyond that of executive functioning, which meant that for boys, inhibition and the other executive functioning explained about half the variance in inattention problems. The stronger relation between inhibition, executive functioning and ADHD symptoms for boys compared to girls could suggests that either the predictors of ADHD are different for the two sexes, or girls are more often equipped with some factor that protects them from developing ADHD symptoms, despite poor executive functioning. However, it is also possible that relations are just harder to demonstrate for girls due to their lower incidence of disruptive problem behaviors.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗

PubMed2003

Inhibition and executive functioning in Type A and ADHD boys.

The present study was aimed at clarifying the standing of Type A behavior, as measured by behavioral observations, relative to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), using measures of inhibitory control and executive functioning. The study sample included 20 boys exhibiting Type A behavior, 21 boys exhibiting Type B behavior and 14 boys diagnosed with ADHD, ranging in age from 7 to 12 years. The results of the present study showed that the Type A children differed from Type B children on two time-related variables, response latency and reaction time, in accordance with the view of Type As as time-urgent and impatient. Furthermore, in comparisons with the ADHD group, the Type A boys were found to be superior on several performance tasks, such as Go/no-go omissions, time reproduction, story recall and memory for sequences of hand movements, although similarities between Type A and ADHD boys were evidenced in terms of response latency and reaction time. In other words, although Type A boys were similar to ADHD boys in terms of overt displays of time-urgency and impatience, Type As do not display deficits with regard to executive functioning, of the kind often found when ADHD children are compared with normal controls. It may thereby be concluded that Type A behavior and hyperactivity/ADHD appear to be well differentiated except with regard to what may be interpreted as impatience. Speculations concerning differing origins of overtly similar characteristics of Type A behavior and ADHD should be considered in future research.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2002

Response inhibition, hyperactivity, and conduct problems among preschool children.

Investigated the relation among response inhibition, hyperactivity, and conduct problems in a nonclinical sample of 115 preschool children, using 2 different types of go/no-go tasks well as a Stroop-like task. In line with the assumption that hyperactivity is related to disinhibition, the results showed that it was the measures of response inhibition, and not other performance measures, that were related to teacher ratings of hyperactivity. There was also a significant relation between response inhibition and conduct problems. Interestingly, the correlation between response inhibition and conduct problems was not significant when partialling out the effect of hyperactivity, whereas the correlation between inhibition and hyperactivity did remain significant when controlling for conduct problems. Although the association between inhibition, hyperactivity, and conduct problems appeared to be partly different for boys and girls, these differences were not statistically significant.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗