Effects of imipramine and methylphenidate on perceptual-motor performance of hyperactive children.

Perceptual-motor effects of imipramine and methylphenidate were evaluated in a double-blind study of 47 hyperactive children. No effects were found for imipramine, although methylphenidate improved performance on several tests. Improvement due to methylphenidate was not related to base-line scores. A discriminant function was computed to compare baseline perceptual-motor scores of the hyperactive and 41 normal children. Only half of the hyperactive children were clearly discriminated from normal children by the discriminant function. The digit-span test, which was not sensitive to methylphenidate, effectively discriminated hyperactive from normal children.