• Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.197-208
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• 2003

Objective：In this study, we hypothesized that deficit in processing rapid linguistic stimuli is at the heart of Reading Disability(RD) and deficit in response inhibition is at the heart of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity(ADHD). We conducted experiments to identify the core cognitive characteristics of children either with RD or with ADHD or with both, using attentional tasks and phoneme differential tests. Method：In the study 1, 28 children with ADHD, 16 children with RD+ADHD were individually administered visual/auditory performance tests. Then, the differences of performance on attentional tasks between two groups were compared while IQs of two groups were controlled. In the study 2, 13 children with RD+ADHD/RD, 13 children with ADHD, and 13 normal children were administered computerized phoneme differential tests. Result：Visual attentional tasks did not distinguish an ADHD group from a RD+ADHD group. With auditory attentional tasks, however, the comorbid group showed significantly more difficulties, causing a large variance in reaction time. RD, RD+ADHD, and ADHD groups showed more errors in phoneme differential tests than a normal control group, and each group showed distinctive performance patterns. Discussion：An ADHD group had difficulty in response inhibition and sustained attention, and children who also had RD along with ADHD magnified the auditory attentional difficulties. Even though children with RD had more trouble with responding correctly to target stimuli, their responses were not significantly different from those of children with ADHD.