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Somatosensory functioning in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Author(s) -
Parush Shula,
Sohmer Haim,
Steinberg Avraham,
Kaitz Marsha
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
developmental medicine and child neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.658
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1469-8749
pISSN - 0012-1622
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8749.1997.tb07466.x
Subject(s) - somatosensory system , audiology , psychology , attention deficit hyperactivity disorder , somatosensory evoked potential , tactile stimuli , attention deficit , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , neuroscience , medicine , sensory system
In older to test the hypothesis that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is related to deficits in somatosensory processing, 49 ADHD male children and 49 matched controls were tested on a wide range of tactile tasks, and somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) were also recorded. In addition, parents' and teachers' ratings on the children's typical responses to tactile stimuli were obtained. The results show that the ADHD children were less skilled on suprathreshold, but not on threshold tasks than were the controls. Further, a larger percentage of ADHD children were ‘tactile defensive’. Finally, the ADHD children showed Iarger‐than‐normal amplitudes of late, but not early components of the SEP. These data suggest that some aspects of somatosensory processing by ADHD children are deficient.