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BACKGROUND Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often present with additional psychiatric conditions. Comorbidity is associated with poorer long-term outcomes, highlighting the need for effective assessment and intervention. However, self-perceptual biases may mask the presence of symptoms for a subgroup of children with ADHD. This study examined the role of social self-perceptual biases in children with ADHD versus control children on self-reports of loneliness, and depressive and anxious symptoms. METHODS The research question was examined in two samples. Sample 1 consisted of 7.7-12.8-year-old boys with ADHD (n = 199) and control boys (n = 74); Sample 2 consisted of 7.7-11.4-year-old boys and girls with ADHD (n = 178) and control children (n = 86). Across samples, children reported social competence and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Child-reported loneliness was examined in Sample 1. A social competence discrepancy score (difference between self-report and teacher-report) was used as an indicator of social self-perceptual bias. RESULTS Hierarchical multiple regression analyses tested social self-perceptual bias as a suppressor variable. The magnitude of the associations between ADHD and self-reported feelings of depression, anxiety and loneliness was greater when social self-perceptual bias was included in models as compared to models that did not include social self-perceptual bias (ΔR2 s range = 0.04-0.19). CONCLUSIONS Findings across both samples suggest that social self-perceptual biases may mask internalizing symptom severity on self-reports for individuals who overestimate their social competence. More research is needed to determine the best approach to assessing internalizing problems among children with ADHD.

This study investigated the role of externalizing behavior as a mediator of the relation between social self-control and peer liking among children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder-Combined Type (ADHD-CT). A model was proposed whereby externalizing behavior would fully statistically account for the direct relation of social self-control to peer liking. One hundred seventy two children ages 7.0-9.9 years with ADHD-CT were rated by their teachers regarding their social self-control and by their parents and teachers regarding their rates of externalizing behavior. Same-sex classmates provided ratings of overall liking. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to assess the proposed model. Results supported the proposed model of externalizing behavior as fully statistically accounting for the relation of social self-control to peer liking. This study demonstrated the crucial role that externalizing behaviors play in the social impairment commonly seen among children with ADHD-CT.

Background: Whilestudieshaveincreasinglyinvestigateddeficitsinreactiontime(RT)andRTvariabilityin children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), few studies have examined the effectsof stimulant medication on these important neuropsychological outcome measures. Methods: 316children who participated in the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA) completedthe Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (CPT) at the 24-month assessment point. Outcomemeasures included standard CPT outcomes (e.g., errors of commission, mean hit reaction time (RT))and RT indicators derived from an Ex-Gaussian distributional model (i.e., mu, sigma, andtau). Results: Analyses revealed significant effects of medication across all neuropsychological out-come measures. Results on the Ex-Gaussian outcome measures revealed that stimulant medicationslows RT and reduces RT variability. Conclusions: This demonstrates the importance of includinganalytic strategies that can accurately model the actual distributional pattern, including the positiveskew. Further, the results of the study relate to several theoretical models of ADHD. Key-words: ADHD/ADD, go/no-go test, stimulants, reaction time, distributions, neuropsychology, phar-macology.A significant body of literature has documented thebehavioral benefits of stimulant medications inchildren with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder(ADHD; Swanson et al., 1995). A majority of thesestudies have used behavioral indices such as parentand teacher rating scales and interviews to docu-ment medication effects. A minority of these studieshave utilized neuropsychological indices to assessmedication effects (see Denney & Rapport, 2001 forreview). The most commonly used neuropsycholo-gical tests across studies have been tests of attentionand inhibition. Stimulant medications appear to re-duce inhibition errors. Medication also appears tosignificantly quicken reaction time (RT) and reduceRT variability, especially on continuous performancetests (see Riccio, Reynolds, & Lowe, 2001 for review).RT variability and to a lesser extent mean RT areincreasingly becoming an area of focus in neuro-psychological studies comparing the performance ofpatients with ADHD to a control group. Significantand reliable differences in RT variability betweenADHD and normal control groups have been docu-mented on response inhibition tests (Conners, Ep-stein, Angold, & Klaric, 2003), discrimination tests(Leth-Steenson, Elbaz, & Douglas, 2000), and con-tinuous performance tests (Riccio et al., 2001). Fur-ther, Epstein et al. (2003) have shown that RTvariability demonstrated the strongest and most re-liable relationship to actual ADHD symptomatologycompared to other outcome measures on a com-monly used neuropsychological test, the Conners’CPT. The general pattern of RT differences has beenthat ADHD patients have slower and more variableRTs than normal controls (Riccio et al., 2001). Fur-ther, ADHD medications appear to accelerate meanRT and reduce RT variability (Riccio et al., 2001).Innovative new analytic techniques have beenintroduced to more accurately examine RT patternsamong ADHD patients. As pointed out by Castell-anos and Tannock (2002), the intra-individual vari-ability or moment by moment process of taskperformance in which individuals with ADHD

Background Despite their potential to influence treatment decisions, parents’ beliefs and attitudes regarding attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have not been widely studied. This research examined relations between parents’ beliefs and attitudes and their experiences with different treatments for their children's ADHD. Methods Canadian parents of 73, 5- to 13-year-old, boys with ADHD completed questionnaires measuring beliefs about ADHD, attributions for ADHD behaviours, and treatment experiences. Results Parents reported using primarily behaviour management and stimulant medications in treating ADHD. Approximately half of the families also used diet/vitamin therapies. Parents were knowledgeable about ADHD and held generally accurate beliefs. They saw ADHD symptoms as predominantly internal to the child and as relatively enduring and pervasive. Parents’ beliefs were related to their use of different treatments and parents who used less empirically supported treatments were more likely to see ADHD behaviours as internal to the child, enduring and pervasive. Conclusions The findings highlight the importance of assessing parents’ use of alternate treatments for ADHD and the potential role of parents’ beliefs and attributions in shaping treatment choices.

The associations between measures of popularity (acceptance, rejection and preference) and friendship were examined in three independent samples of elementary and middle school children. Data were obtained by means of sociometric nomination and rating scale procedures. Results reveal that, regardless of measurement technique, acceptance is generally more strongly related to friendship than is either rejection or preference. The size of the association between popularity and friendship decreases with age. Mean comparisons show that popularity is a predictor and/or is temporally antecedent to friendship rather than vice-versa. These results indicate that the association between popularity and friendship derives from their conceptual dependence on the construct of liking.