Moment-to-moment dynamics of ADHD behaviour in South African children
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Moment-to-moment dynamics of ADHD behaviour in South African children Heidi Aase*1,3,4, Anneke Meyer2,4 and Terje Sagvolden3,4 Address: 1Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Division of mental health, P.O Box 4404 Nydalen, N-0403 Oslo, Norway, 2School of Health Sciences, University of Limpopo, South Africa, 3Department of Physiology, University of Oslo, Norway and 4Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy for Science and Letters, Oslo, Norway Email: Heidi Aase* - [email protected]; Anneke Meyer - [email protected]; Terje Sagvolden - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 28 March 2006 Behavioral and Brain Functions 2006, 2:11
doi:10.1186/1744-9081-2-11
Received: 07 November 2005 Accepted: 28 March 2006
This article is available from: http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/2/1/11 © 2006 Aase et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: The behaviour of children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is characterized by low predictability of responding. Low behavioural predictability is one way of operationalizing intra-individual ADHDrelated variability. ADHD-related variability may be caused by inefficient behavioural selection mechanisms linked to reinforcement and extinction, as suggested by the recently published dynamic developmental theory (DDT) of ADHD. DDT argues that ADHD is a basic neurobehavioural disorder, caused by dysfunctioning dopamine systems. For establishing ADHD as a neurobehavioural disorder, findings from studies conducted in Western countries should be replicated in other cultural populations. The present study replicated the study conducted in Norway, with children from the Limpopo province in the Republic of South Africa. Methods: Boys and girls, aged 6–9 yr, from seven ethnic groups participated. Scores by teachers on the Disruptive Behavior Disorders rating scale defined participation in either ADHD-hyperactive/impulsive (-HI), ADHD-predominantly inattentive (-PI), or ADHD-combined (-C) groups. Children below the 86th percentile were matched on gender and age and comprised the non-ADHD group. The children completed a computerized game-like task where mouse clicks on one of two squares on the screen resulted in delivery of a reinforcer according to a variable interval schedule of reinforcement. Reinforcers were cartoon pictures presented on the screen together with a sound. Predictability of response location and timing were measured in terms of explained variance. Results: Overall, the results replicated findings from Norway. Specifically, the ADHD-C group showed significantly lower predictability of responding than the non-ADHD group, while the ADHD-HI and the ADHDPI groups were in-between. In accordance with the
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