Processing Affective Stimuli in Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

Neuropsychological investigations have suggested a contribution of right hemisphere dysfunction in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Right hemisphere dysfunction has been implicated in deficits of attention, motor impersistence, and processing emotion-laden stimuli. The current study investigated the ability of ADHD children to perceive emotional stimuli in the form of facial expressions and speech intonation. The subjects consisted of 37 ADHD and 37 control children aged 7 to 12 years. ANCOVA analysis indicated that ADHD children demonstrate mild-to-moderate deficits in the perception of affect. Furthermore, deficits in attention may contribute to inaccurate or incomplete encoding of stimulus properties. The results lend tentative support for the notion that the right cerebral hemisphere may play a critical role in ADHD.

Emotion-recognition abilities and behavior problem dimensions in preschoolers: Evidence for a specific role for childhood hyperactivity

“…Reduced sensitivity to facial anger and sadness has been reported previously in primary-school-aged children (Corbett & Glidden, 2000;Kats-Gold, Besser, & Priel, 2007;Pelc et al, 2006) and preschoolers (Martin et al, 2010) with hyperactivity. The results raise the possibility that anger might play an important role in the emotion-regulation deficits seen in children with hyperactivity.…”

“…We predicted that conduct problems would be positively associated with difficulties identifying negative emotions across faces and voices (especially anger), whereas symptoms of hyperactivity would be positively linked to broader difficulties in emotion recognition for faces and voices (anger, sadness, and happiness). This prediction was based on past findings that conduct problems were associated with increased errors (Fairchild et al, 2010) and biases (Schultz et al, 2000) in regards to negative expressions, whereas hyperactivity was associated with general difficulties identifying both positive and negative expressions (Corbett & Glidden, 2000;Sinzig et al, 2008). In addition, it was hypothesized that elevated internalizing symptoms would be associated with a bias to angry facial expressions.…”

“…Similarly, impairments in the recognition of emotional expressions have been linked to both externalizing and internalizing symptoms in childhood and adolescence. Increased symptoms of hyperactivity in 6 to 12-year-old children, for example, have been linked to difficulties recognizing both positive (happy) and negative (anger, sadness, fear) facial expressions of emotion (Boakes, Chapman, Houghton, & West, 2008;Corbett & Glidden, 2000;Pelc, Kornreich, Foisy, & Dan, 2006;Sinzig, Morsch, & Lehmkuhl, 2008). In addition, children and adolescents with conduct problems showed increased errors detecting negative (sad, angry, and fearful) facial expressions (Blair, Colledge, Murray, & Mitchell, 2001;Fairchild, Stobbe, Van Goozen, Calder, & Goodyer, 2010) and a hostility bias-a tendency to attribute anger to facial expressions of emotion (Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990;Schultz, Izard, & Bear, 2004).…”

Investigation of alexithymia, depression and childhood ADHD symptom levels in parents of children with ADHD

“…14 Literatürde DEHB'li çocukların kontrollere göre daha yüksek oranda yüz ifadesinde duygu tanı-ma bozuklukları gösterdikleri belirtilmiştir. [22][23][24][25][26] Ayrıca çalışmalarda erişkin DEHB'de duygu tanıma kusurunun olabileceği gösterilmiştir. 27,28 Bir çalışmada DEHB'li çocuklarda ve özellikle hiperaktif-dürtüsel alt tip olan çocukların kontrol grubundaki çocuklara göre özellikle sinirli ve üzgün duygular olmak üzere duyguların yüz ifadelerini algılamakta sorun yaşadıkları bulunmuştur.…”

Social cognition and emotion regulation in adolescents with ADHD

“…7 DEHB'li çocuk ve ergenlerde duygu tanıma ve zihin kuramı alanlarında yapılan çalışmalarda toplumsal biliş ile ilgili çeşitli yetersizlikler saptanmış-tır. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Bu çalışmanın amacı DEHB'li ergenlerin toplumsal bilişsel özelliklerinin ve duygu düzenleme becerilerinin değerlendirilmesi ve sağlıklı kontrol grubu ile karşılaştırılmasıdır. Bildiğimiz kadarıyla, Türk toplumunda DEHB'li ergenlerin toplumsal biliş özelliklerinin ve duygu düzenleme becerilerinin birlikte değerlendirildiği ve sağlıklı kontrol grubu ile karşılaştırıldığı bir çalışma yoktur.…”