Pat on the Back Helps
Inattentive Kids Perform Better
NEW YORK: A little praise or reward
improves the performance of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD) on certain cognitive tasks - more so than they would for
typically developing kids, says a new study.
"Kids with ADHD showed more
improvement because they are more motivated by the opportunity to gain rewards,
not because they simply did worse from the beginning," said one of the
researchers Whitney Fosco from the University at Buffalo in the US.
The study examined two leading theories on ADHD, combining what previous work had mostly looked at separately.
The study examined two leading theories on ADHD, combining what previous work had mostly looked at separately.
One of those theories suggests that lower-than-average cognitive abilities contribute to symptoms associated with ADHD, such as inattentiveness.
The other theory favours motivation over ability, focusing on whether kids with ADHD have an increased sensitivity to reward.
"When asking whether the
performance difference we see is the result of ability or motivation, this
research has more of an answer than any study that comes before it," the
study's principle investigator Larry Hawk from the University at Buffalo
pointed out.
"You cannot say kids with ADHD
respond more to reinforcement because they were doing poorly to begin
with," Hawk said.
"We showed that was not true. It was greater motivation to obtain external rewards that drove the effects we observed," Hawk noted.
The findings appeared in the journal
Behavioural and Brain Functions.
Source | http://www.newindianexpress.
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