Mainstream and remedial school attention deficit hyperactivity disorder boys: More alike than different

The literature on the neuropsychology of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is plagued by inconsistent findings, which are usually attributed to a variety of extraneous variables. One of the most inadequately explored of these variables is the difference between ADHD children attending remedial and mainstream schools. This study aimed to investigate whether the performance of remedial and mainstream school ADHD boys differs on relevant neuropsychological tasks. The sample consisted of three groups of 8- to 12-year-old boys. Two of these groups consisted of children with ADHD: one from remedial schools and one from mainstream schools. The third group was made up of participants without ADHD, who attended mainstream schools. The performance of the remedial school learners on the Stroop, Lurian and cancellation tasks was investigated and compared to a mainstream school ADHD sample. The performance of the ADHD group as a whole was compared with that of a control group. No significant difference in performance was found between the two ADHD groups, except for the length of time taken to read words in the control condition of the Stroop. The control group out-performed the ADHD samples on the Stroop, Lurian and cancellation tasks. The findings suggest that mainstream and remedial ADHD boys do not differ in the severity of their executive deficits, but that boys with ADHD attending remedial schools may be more likely to have another learning disorder than their counterparts at mainstream schools.