The relation between executive functions, error-related brain activity, and ADHD symptoms in clinically evaluated school-aged children

Working memory and inhibitory control deficits in children with ADHD: an experimental evaluation of competing model predictions

“…Regarding inhibitory control, meta-analytic evidence indicates that anxiety disorders are not associated with impairments ( ns ; 79 ) or are associated with small magnitude impairments ( d =-0.31; 80 ) that are significant based on analysis of response times ( d =-0.27) but not accuracy data ( ns ; 81 ). Regarding working memory, recent meta-analyses diverge in documenting a small magnitude impairment in children with anxiety disorders ( d =-0.24; 82 ), no significant impairment ( ns ; 80 ), or no significant impairment based on response time data ( ns ) but a small, significant strength based on accuracy data ( d =0.38; 81 ) that was also found in a recent empirical study controlling for ADHD status ( d =0.19; 83 ). However, when examined, effect sizes tended to be similar across anxiety disorder categories, anxiety severity, and/or state versus trait anxiety ( 80 – 82 ), at least for the diagnoses included in the current study (please see Method section below).…”

“…It may also either not affect (accuracy data) or produce a small underestimate (response times/RTs) of ADHDrelated inhibition deficits. In contrast, co-occurring anxiety disorders do not appear to affect estimates of working memory deficits in children with ADHD but may exert a small protective effect by reducing the magnitude of inhibition deficits in cooccurring ADHD+anxiety relative to ADHD-only groups by d=0.14-0.41 across meta-analyses (79,83,84). Thus, estimates of ADHD-related impairments should be interpreted with the clinical nature of the comparison group in mind.…”