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Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology Advance Access published online on October 13, 2009
Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology, doi:10.1093/arclin/acp075
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Intellectual Deficits in Children with ADHD Beyond Central Executive and Non-Executive Functions{dagger}

Carin M. Tillmana,*, Gunilla Bohlina, Lin Sørensenb,c and Astri J. Lundervoldb,c

a Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
b Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
c Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

* Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, PO Box 1225, SE-751 42 Uppsala, Sweden. Tel.: +46-18-471-21-03; fax: +46-18-471-21-23. E-mail address: carin.tillman{at}psyk.uu.se (C.M. Tillman).


  Abstract

This study aimed to specify the deficit in intellectual ability in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), by studying the mediating role of impairments in central executive function (EF)-related components (working memory, inhibition, sustained attention) and non-EFs (short-term memory and processing speed). Two hundred and thirty children aged 8–11 years from a population-based sample were assigned to either the ADHD group, the clinical comparison group, or the normal comparison group. The results showed that children with ADHD had poorer fluid and crystallized intelligence, relative to both comparison groups. Further, regarding fluid intelligence, these deficits were not fully mediated by, but rather went beyond, poorer functioning on the studied EF-related components and non-EFs. We tentatively interpret these fluid deficits in children with ADHD as representing deficiencies in a general intellectual resource reflecting executive attentional processes. Concerning crystallized ability, in contrast, the deficit signified impairment in the studied cognitive functions, as indicated by the significant full mediation effect.

Keywords ADHD; Intelligence; Executive functions (EF)

Accepted: September 11, 2009

{dagger} Inter-correlations between the cognitive variables used in this study have been reported for descriptive purposes in a previous article (Tillman, Bohlin, Sørensen, & Lundervold, in press). The two manuscripts are otherwise concerned with different research questions.


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