Poissant H, Neault I, Dallaire S, Rouillard M, Emond V, Guay M-C, Lageix P
Centre neurosciences cognitives, université du Québec à Montréal-case postale 8888, succursale Centre-Ville-Montréal (Québec) H3C 3P8, Canada.
Encephale. 2008 Apr;34(2):161-9. doi: 10.1016/j.encep.2007.01.007. Epub 2007 Sep 5.
Self-regulation shares several affinities with executive functions. However, the specificity of self-regulation deficits in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) remains unclear. The typical child starts around the age of four to develop a self-control mechanism along with an internal language that allows the child to modulate impulsively. Conversely, a child with ADHD seems to have greater difficulties delaying or retaining an action or response.
In this study we aim to evaluate self-regulation of comprehension in ADHD.
Our results show that children with ADHD fail to recognize inconsistencies in presented stories at a rate ranging between 72 (eight years) and 54% (ten years). We also found a positive correlation between a better control of self-regulation and our behavioral inhibition measurement. The attentional deficits exhibited through markedly longer reaction times to continuous performance test (CPT) could be responsible for a poor ability to self-regulate. Fast reaction times were found to be associated with increased vigilance/attention that in turn would permit better self-regulation. Furthermore, our findings show that older subjects with ADHD have shorter reaction times to CPT approaching this group to the typical children.
This suggests that improvement overtime in self-regulation processes may be attributed to the associated development of vigilance/attention in children with ADHD. Improved vigilance/attention would result in optimal reaction times during tasks that require self-regulation. In addition, our findings suggest that subjects with ADHD have developmental trajectories similar to those observed in healthy subjects.
In the present study, the lack of a comparison group does not allow us to conclude if such trajectory is delayed compared to typical subjects. Finally, there was no significant relation between the degree of intelligence and the rate of self-regulation, which makes it possible to distinguish the two functions. However, in ADHD self-regulation is favourably influenced by age as observed in developmental studies on typical children. Thus, maturation independent of intelligence, influences self-regulation processes.
自我调节与执行功能有若干相似之处。然而，注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）中自我调节缺陷的特异性仍不明确。典型儿童大约在四岁左右开始发展自我控制机制以及一种内部语言，这种语言使儿童能够调节冲动行为。相反，患有ADHD的儿童似乎在延迟或抑制行动或反应方面有更大困难。
在本研究中，我们旨在评估ADHD患者的理解性自我调节。
我们的结果表明，患有ADHD的儿童识别所呈现故事中不一致之处的比例在72%（八岁）至54%（十岁）之间。我们还发现自我调节的更好控制与我们的行为抑制测量之间存在正相关。通过对连续性能测试（CPT）的反应时间明显更长所表现出的注意力缺陷可能是自我调节能力差的原因。发现快速反应时间与提高的警觉性/注意力相关，而这反过来又会允许更好的自我调节。此外，我们的研究结果表明，年龄较大的ADHD受试者对CPT的反应时间较短，使其接近典型儿童群体。
这表明自我调节过程随时间的改善可能归因于ADHD儿童警觉性/注意力的相关发展。提高的警觉性/注意力将导致在需要自我调节任务期间的最佳反应时间。此外，我们的研究结果表明，ADHD受试者的发展轨迹与健康受试者中观察到的相似。
在本研究中，由于缺乏对照组，我们无法得出与典型受试者相比这种轨迹是否延迟的结论。最后，智力程度与自我调节率之间没有显著关系，这使得能够区分这两种功能。然而，正如在典型儿童的发育研究中所观察到的，在ADHD中自我调节受到年龄的有利影响。因此，独立于智力的成熟会影响自我调节过程。
