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Objective: We compared ratings of behavior and attention problems between youth-onset psychosis and ADHD, two disorders in which attentional impairments play a key role, and examined the effect of psychostimulant use on age of onset in psychosis. Method: Parent and teacher ratings of behavioral problems and ADHD symptoms were collected using the Achenbach CBCL, TRF, and SNAP-IV Teacher Rating Scales on 42 participants with psychosis, 36 with ADHD and 57 controls (ages 8-19). Results and Conclusions: Results suggested that academic, externalizing, and attention problems reflect symptoms shared between the disorders, whereas internalizing, social and thought problems reflect factors that differ between disorders. Furthermore, participants with psychosis who had been prescribed psychostimulants had a younger age of onset of psychotic symptoms than those who had not. This difference could reflect dissimilarities in symptom severity symptom between subgroups or potentially harmful effects of psychostimulants in individuals predisposed to develop psychosis. (Contains 5 tables.)

This paper reviews the use of eye tracking measures (saccades, smooth-pursuit eye movements, fixations during scene and face perception, and pupillary dilation) to study typical and clinical populations of children and adolescents and evaluates the use of these measures. The studies are evaluated with a focus on points that may be of general interest to developmentalists (the contribution of contextual and temporal factors in performance, methods of analyzing age-related differences, and the role of the psychometric properties of the tests in interpretation of differences across age and clinical groups). Some limitations of eye tracking are pointed out (e.g., the nature of the relation between oculomotor and other motor systems, constraints in making inferences about the brain from psychophysiological data). Finally, the potential of eye tracking measures for probing normative and abnormal development is explored.

The goal of this study was to examine incidental and intentional spatial sequence learning during middle childhood and adolescence. We tested four age groups (8-10 years, 11-13 years, 14-17 years, and young adults [18+ years]) on a serial reaction time task and used manual and oculomotor measures to examine incidental sequence learning. Participants were also administered a trial block in which they were explicitly instructed to learn a sequence. Replicating our previous study with adults, oculomotor anticipations and response times showed learning effects similar to those in the manual modality. There were few age-related differences in the sequence learning indexes during incidental learning, but intentional learning yielded differences on all indexes. Results indicate that the search for regularities and the ability to learn a sequence rapidly under incidental conditions are mature by 8 to 10 years of age. In contrast, the ability to learn a sequence intentionally, which requires cognitive resources and strategies, continues to develop through adolescence.

Background: The integrity of working memory in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was tested within the framework of Baddeley's model. Methods-1: Buffers and rehearsal mechanisms were assessed by presenting children with or without ADHD (ages 8 to 15) with 1-7 target letters and a probe after 2-10 s. They decided if the probe was the same (verbal task) or in the same location (spatial task) as any of the targets. Results-1: There was no interaction between group and delay or memory load in either task. Methods-2: The central executive was assessed on a dual task. Results-2: Although children with ADHD did not differ from controls in simple response time (RT) or in digits recalled, they showed greater decrements in RT when performing the 2 tasks concurrently. Conclusions: Findings suggest that children with ADHD (1) do not have generalized impairments in working memory, (2) rehearse verbal and spatial information in the same manner as healthy children, (3) may have an impairment in the central executive component of working memory, which controls ability to divide attention between two tasks.

The authors used pupillary dilations to test whether divided attention deficits in youth-onset psychosis and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were because of limitations in recruitment of cognitive resources or abnormalities in attention allocation. Eight-to 19-year-olds with youth-onset psychosis or ADHD were administered a divided attention test consisting of an auditory digit span (DS) task and a simple visual response time (RT) task. In 4 conditions, participants performed neither (no task), 1 (DS or RT only), or both tasks (dual). Dependent variables were DS accuracy, RT, and pupillary dilation to digits as an estimate of recruitment of cognitive resources. The authors found no evidence for an abnormal attention strategy in either disorder. Instead, results were consistent with the hypothesis that both clinical groups have limitations in resource recruitment. These limitations were more severe in psychosis than in ADHD. Findings indicate that both clinical groups had difficulties in regulating physiological arousal on a moment-to-moment basis in accordance with task demands. Findings also demonstrate the importance of taking into account difficulties that constrain performance on simple tasks before interpreting impairments on complex tasks. Keywords: youth-onset psychosis, ADHD, pupillary dilation, divided attention, cognitive resources

Byline: Canan Karatekin (a), David J. Marcus (b), Tonya White (c) Keywords: Development; Sequence learning; Incidental learning; Intentional learning; Serial reaction time (SRT); Eye movements; Anticipatory responses; Visual-spatial attention Abstract: The goal of this study was to examine incidental and intentional spatial sequence learning during middle childhood and adolescence. We tested four age groups (8-10 years, 11-13 years, 14-17 years, and young adults [18+ years]) on a serial reaction time task and used manual and oculomotor measures to examine incidental sequence learning. Participants were also administered a trial block in which they were explicitly instructed to learn a sequence. Replicating our previous study with adults, oculomotor anticipations and response times showed learning effects similar to those in the manual modality. There were few age-related differences in the sequence learning indexes during incidental learning, but intentional learning yielded differences on all indexes. Results indicate that the search for regularities and the ability to learn a sequence rapidly under incidental conditions are mature by 8 to 10 years of age. In contrast, the ability to learn a sequence intentionally, which requires cognitive resources and strategies, continues to develop through adolescence. Author Affiliation: (a) Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA (b) Children's National Medical Center, Washington, DC 20010, USA (c) Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA Article History: Received 10 August 2003; Revised 24 May 2006

Experiencing victimization in childhood increases risk of adulthood revictimization, and it is important to understand what may contribute to such risk. One factor that may help to explain the increased risk of future victimization is disclosure. However, the literature is mixed as to whether disclosure of prior victimization is helpful for protecting against adverse outcomes, and much of the research on disclosure focuses solely on sexual victimization. The current study examines the relationship between various forms of childhood and adulthood victimization and whether disclosure moderates this relationship. In addition, this study investigates whether characteristics of disclosure are associated with revictimization risk. The sample included 275 undergraduates (M age = 19.52 years; 75.6% female, 77.5% non-Hispanic White or Caucasian). Participants reported on previous history of various forms of childhood and adulthood victimization. They also reported whether or not they had disclosed childhood victimization, and, if so, characteristics related to disclosure. Results revealed that number of childhood victimization experiences significantly predicted number of adulthood victimization experiences, and nearly every type of childhood victimization significantly increased risk of experiencing each type of adulthood victimization. Disclosure did not moderate the relationship between childhood and adulthood victimization. Participants who disclosed were more likely to disclose crime and peer/sibling victimization and disclose to parents or friends. Positive reactions to disclosure were more common than negative reactions; however, 75% of disclosers received at least one negative reaction. Finally, revictimized individuals received more overall negative reactions than nonrevictimized individuals. They also received more reactions characterized by the person they disclosed to trying to take control of their decisions or treating them differently. Results highlight the importance of examining relationships between various forms of victimization, considering how characteristics of disclosure relate to risk of revictimization, and the importance of educating potential support networks about appropriate responses to disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]