The effects of sensory distractions on short-term recall of children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder versus normally achieving children

Abstract

Children diagnosed with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often have difficulties in learning, attributable, in part, to varying attention. Learning requires the use of memory. However, children may often miss a word or phrase that is essential to the processing of information, memory, and learning. This study addressed short-term recall in 11 children with ADHD and 8 normally achieving children (matched for age and grade) on repetitive tasks involving auditory, visual, and combined distractions. The children with ADHD performed more poorly in the middle and end (but not at the beginning) of a short-term recall task than did the normally achieving children matched for age and grade. Both groups of children showed a decrement in performance on the short-term recall task from the beginning to the middle to the end of the task. However, the decrement in performance directly attributable to specific sensory distractions was relatively small (about 2%–14%) and statistically nonsignficant in comparison with decreases in performance attributable to increasing proactive interference, increasing difficulty of the statements from begining to end of a 30-statement set, and other factors.