Event-Based Prospective Memory Deficit in Children with ADHD: Underlying Cognitive Factors and Association with Symptoms

Floriana Costanzo, Elisa Fucà, Deny Menghini, Antonella Rita Circelli, Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo, Alberto Costa and Stefano Vicari
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Floriana Costanzo: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, IRCCS, 00146 Rome, Italy
Elisa Fucà: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, IRCCS, 00146 Rome, Italy
Deny Menghini: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, IRCCS, 00146 Rome, Italy
Antonella Rita Circelli: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, IRCCS, 00146 Rome, Italy
Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo: Laboratory of Clinical and Behavioral Neurology, Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179 Rome, Italy
Alberto Costa: Laboratory of Clinical and Behavioral Neurology, Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179 Rome, Italy
Stefano Vicari: Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Department of Neuroscience, Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, IRCCS, 00146 Rome, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 11, 1-24

Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) was investigated in children with Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), using a novel experimental procedure to evaluate the role of working memory (WM) load, attentional focus, and reward sensitivity. The study included 24 children with ADHD and 23 typically-developing controls. The experimental paradigm comprised one baseline condition (BC), only including an ongoing task, and four PM conditions, varying for targets: 1 Target (1T), 4 Targets (4T), Unfocal (UN), and Reward (RE). Children with ADHD were slower than controls on all PM tasks and less accurate on both ongoing and PM tasks on the 4T and UN conditions. Within the ADHD group, the accuracy in the RE condition did not differ from BC. A significant relationship between ADHD-related symptoms and reduced accuracy/higher speed in PM conditions (PM and ongoing trials), but not in BC, was detected. Our data provide insight on the adverse role of WM load and attentional focus and the positive influence of reward in the PM performance of children with ADHD. Moreover, the relation between PM and ADHD symptoms paves the road for PM as a promising neuropsychological marker for ADHD diagnosis and intervention.

Keywords: ADHD; prospective memory; reward; attention (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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