TY - JOUR
T1 - Duration judgments in children with ADHD suggest deficient utilization of temporal information rather than general impairment in timing
AU - Radonovich, Krestin J.
AU - Mostofsky, Stewart H.
N1 - Funding Information:
?Supported by NIH Grants K08 NS02039 and T32 MH20033-02. Address correspondence to: Stewart H. Mostofsky, MD, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA. Tel.: +1-443-923-9250. Fax: +1-443-923-9255. E-mail: mostofsky@kennedykrieger.org Accepted for publication: July 17, 2003.
PY - 2004/9
Y1 - 2004/9
N2 - Clinicians, parents, and teachers alike have noted that individuals with ADHD often have difficulties with "time management," which has led some to suggest a primary deficit in time perception in ADHD. Previous studies have implicated the basal ganglia, cerebellum, and frontal lobes in time estimation and production, with each region purported to make different contributions to the processing and utilization of temporal information. Given the observed involvement of the frontal-subcortical networks in ADHD, we examined judgment of durations in children with ADHD (N = 27) and age- and gender-matched control subjects (N = 15). Two judgment tasks were administered: short duration (550 ms) and long duration (4 s). The two groups did not differ significantly in their judgments of short interval durations; however, subjects with ADHD performed more poorly when making judgments involving long intervals. The groups also did not differ on a judgment-of-pitch task, ruling out a generalized deficit in auditory discrimination. Selective impairment in making judgments involving long intervals is consistent with performance by patients with frontal lobe lesions and suggests that there is a deficiency in the utilization of temporal information in ADHD (possibly secondary to deficits in working memory and/or strategy utilization), rather than a problem involving a central timing mechanism.
AB - Clinicians, parents, and teachers alike have noted that individuals with ADHD often have difficulties with "time management," which has led some to suggest a primary deficit in time perception in ADHD. Previous studies have implicated the basal ganglia, cerebellum, and frontal lobes in time estimation and production, with each region purported to make different contributions to the processing and utilization of temporal information. Given the observed involvement of the frontal-subcortical networks in ADHD, we examined judgment of durations in children with ADHD (N = 27) and age- and gender-matched control subjects (N = 15). Two judgment tasks were administered: short duration (550 ms) and long duration (4 s). The two groups did not differ significantly in their judgments of short interval durations; however, subjects with ADHD performed more poorly when making judgments involving long intervals. The groups also did not differ on a judgment-of-pitch task, ruling out a generalized deficit in auditory discrimination. Selective impairment in making judgments involving long intervals is consistent with performance by patients with frontal lobe lesions and suggests that there is a deficiency in the utilization of temporal information in ADHD (possibly secondary to deficits in working memory and/or strategy utilization), rather than a problem involving a central timing mechanism.
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U2 - 10.1080/09297040490911023
DO - 10.1080/09297040490911023
M3 - Article
C2 - 15590495
AN - SCOPUS:2942608705
VL - 10
SP - 162
EP - 172
JO - Child Neuropsychology
JF - Child Neuropsychology
SN - 0929-7049
IS - 3
ER -