Judgment of emotional stimuli by children with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder

Although there is consensus among researchers that children with Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have serious social problems, there is little understanding of the mechanisms underlying these problems. To examine the possibility of weaknesses in the processing and interpretation of emotional stimuli, perceptual tests involving facial and emotional stimuli were given to 16 adolescent males with Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and 16 normal adolescent males. It was hypothesized that ADHD children would show a right hemispheric bias in perception as would normal subjects. It was predicted that children with ADHD would perform more poorly than normal peers on perceptual tasks involving the judgement of emotional stimuli. Results indicate no differences in visual field preference between ADHD subjects and normal peers. Significant group differences between ADHD adolescent males and normal peers were noted in the processing of particular emotional stimuli.