[Deficient adaptive regulation of emotion in children with ADHD]. / Defizitäre adaptive emotions- regulation bei kindern mit ADHS.

OBJECTIVES: The current study investigates whether children with and without ADHD differ in their implementation of emotion-regulation strategies. In addition, it explores whether the regulation patterns of ADHD children are related to co-occurring behavioral and emotional problems. METHODS: A group of 21 children with ADHD and a group of 20 children without ADHD (ages 10-13) completed the Questionnaire on Emotion Regulation in Children and Adolescents (FEEL-KJ, Grob & Smolenski, 2005). Furthermore, we employed the parent-rated Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Woerner, Becker & Rothenberger, 2004) to assess the socioemotional problems of ADHD children. RESULTS: Self-reports revealed group differences in terms of adaptive emotion regulation, though no group differences were found in terms of maladaptive emotion regulation. Specifically, children with ADHD reported less frequently applying the strategies "Cognitive Problem Solving," "Problem-Oriented Acting," "Mood Enhancement," "Reevaluation," and "Distraction." Children with ADHD also reported seeking social support less frequently than the controls. Moreover, significant negative correlations were found between adaptive coping and co-occurring behavioral and emotional problems. CONCLUSIONS: Children with and without ADHD specifically differ in their application of problem-oriented emotion-regulation strategies, especially those ADHD children suffer from co-occurring problems who particularly infrequently apply adaptive emotion regulation strategies.

Examining the Relationship Between Children's ADHD Symptomatology and Inadequate Parenting: The Role of Household Chaos.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the interrelations of parenting practices, emotional climate, and household chaos in families with children with and without ADHD. In particular, indirect pathways from children's ADHD symptomatology to inadequate parenting and negative emotional climate via household chaos were investigated. METHOD: Parenting, emotional climate, and household chaos were assessed using questionnaires and a speech sample of parents of 31 children with and 53 without ADHD, aged 7 to 13 years. RESULTS: Group differences were found for certain parenting dimensions, the parent-child relationship, critical comments, and household chaos. While we found significant indirect effects between children's ADHD and certain parenting dimensions through household chaos, no effects were found for any aspect of emotional climate. CONCLUSION: Children's ADHD symptoms translate into inadequate parenting through household chaos, which underlines the need for interventions to improve household organization skills in parents of children with ADHD.

The interplay of delay aversion, timing skills, and impulsivity in children experiencing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms.

Impulsive behaviours occurring as a central deficit in connection with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are associated with social and academic impairment in children. Whereas impulsivity was shown to be related to both delay aversion and deficient timing skills, the mutual relation between the latter two has hardly been investigated. The present study therefore examined the interplay of delay aversion, timing skills, and impulsivity in a sample of eighty-eight children aged between seven and fourteen, twenty-one of them diagnosed with ADHD. Children participated in a delay aversion and a tapping task, while parents reported about their impulsiveness. The results showed that both delay aversion and deficient timing skills were related to impulsivity. Contrasting prior assumptions, delay aversion and timing skills were also shown to be related, even when controlling for impulsivity. Implications for interventions aiming to reduce children's impulsivity as well as methodological considerations regarding whether to view ADHD as a category or a continuum are discussed.

To what extent are task-switching deficits in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder independent of impaired inhibition?

Executive functions, higher-order cognitive functions needed for goal-directed behavior, have been studied extensively in the search for endophenotypes for ADHD, yet results have been inconclusive. We examine the performance of children with ADHD in task switching as an as yet understudied potential endophenotype. A group of 20 children with ADHD and a group of 23 children without ADHD (ages 7-12) performed a task-switching paradigm and a Go/No-Go Task. Children with ADHD displayed significantly greater specific switch costs, that is, compared to control children they were especially impaired directly after task switches. There were no group differences with respect to the general switch costs, which are estimated by comparing performance on single task blocks to the block where both tasks are intermixed. Specific switch costs and Go/No-Go error rate were significantly correlated; yet, group differences in the task-switching paradigm remained significant even when inhibition was controlled for. This pattern of results suggests that children with ADHD are neither generally impaired in executive function nor only impaired with respect to inhibition. Instead, they display a highly specific deficit with regard to the flexible suppression and amplification of different task rules according to the context. Our conclusion that task switching has the potential to be added to the list of ADHD endophenotypes is strengthened by the independence of task-switching deficits and inhibition.