The Relationship Between Performance on the Gordon Diagnostic System and Other Measures of Attention

Abstract

Tests purporting to measure attention were administered to college students to examine their relationship to three relatively new tests of attention from the Gordon Diagnostic System (GDS). All subjects received the Standard Delay, Vigilance, and Distractibility Tests of the GDS. In addition, 69 of 136 subjects received the Digit Span, Arithmetic, and Digit Symbol subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale‐Revised (WAIS‐R), and Kagan's Matching Familiar Figures Test. After the GDS, the other 67 subjects received the Visual Span subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale‐Revised (WMS‐R), and the Stroop. Replication (across two studies) and gender influences were not evident on GDS performance. Performance data on this test for these 136 college students, collapsed across replication and gender, are presented. Although within‐test correlations were strong, correlations between tests were weak. A ceiling effect on the Vigilance task may have effected its correlations with other tests. Results suggest that the GDS tasks are not substitutes for commonly used tests of attention, but may be useful as an additional source of information in the assessment of attention.

The Relationship Between Intelligence and Performance on the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA)

“…Specifically, neither the FSIQ score nor any of the three factor scores that constituted the WAIS-R correlated significantly with any of the four variables measured on the TOVA. These findings are similar to those reported by other CPT studies (e.g., Gale & Lynn, 1972;Halperin et al, 1991;Rasile, Burg, Burright, & Donovick, 1995;Van Der Meere & Sergeant, 1987), including that of Chae (1999), who also failed to find a significant correlation between the overall TOVA score and the WISC-III. Collectively, these studies suggest that intelligence may be unrelated to CPT performance and raise concerns about the subjective interpretation of TOVA data based on information about an individual's intelligence score as suggested by Greenberg (1993) and others. The results of the present study are inconsistent, however, with the results of work by Aylward, Gordon, and Verhulst (1997), Klee and Garfinkel (1983), Lovejoy and Rasmussen (1990), and Seidel and Joschko (1991).…”

“…Another possible explanation for the inconsistencies across studies pertains to the age of the participants. For example, a number of studies (Kirby et al, 1978;Rasile et al, 1995 Note. ADHD = attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; TOVA = Test of Variables of Attention; WAIS-R = Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised; FD = freedom from distractibility factor.…”

Continuous Performance Tests Are Sensitive to ADHD in Adults but Lack Specificity

“…For example, CPT omission errors correlated moderately with the WCST Total Errors and Total Categories scores 141,158,159. A number of studies have investigated the level of association between the Stroop task79 and CPT performance 128,158,161–163. Moderate correlations were found between the Stroop and CPT164,165; only in one study was the correlation not found to be at least moderate 163…”

Behavioural differences between psychiatric patients with confirmed versus non-confirmed traumatic brain injuries

“…For both the Vigilance and Distractability conditions, the total number of correct responses was utilized for statistical analysis. Data on these measures are available for college students [40], persons with TBI [27], and psychiatric patients [41]. [42] This was administered to measure span of immediate verbal recall.…”

“…The normative sample of the GDS (e.g. [40]) is not large enough to allow for a meaningful transformation of raw scores to standardized scores. Therefore, the statistical analyses of the Delay (efficiency ratio scores potentially range from 0.00± 1.00), Vigilance, and Distractibility (scores potentially range from 0± 30) were performed with raw scores.…”