Risk-taking propensity and sensitivity to punishment in adolescents with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder symptoms and/or reading disability

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Highlights

  • We confirm the potential utility of BART as a behavioral measure for assessing delinquent behavior.

  • ADHD despite with greater risk-taking propensity, was sensitive to immediate punishment.

  • RD despite with normal risk-taking propensity, displayed a tendency of being less sensitive to punishment.

  • Comorbid had the highest delinquency score, risk propensity and the least punishment sensitivity.

  • Comorbidity might have stronger impact on risk taking or even delinquency than pure condition.

Abstract

Many studies reported that adolescents with ADHD/RD more frequently engage in risk-taking behaviors. Very few have examined their risk taking patterns and the impact of their comorbidity. The present study compared the risk-taking propensity, sensitivity to punishment and delinquency outcome in Chinese adolescents with ADHD symptoms (AS) and/or RD using a simulated risk task, the Balloon Analogous Risk Task (BART). Adolescents with AS (n = 37), RD (n = 35), AS + RD (n = 35), and control (n = 36) were recruited from local secondary schools. Results showed that adolescents with ADHD, despite their great risk-taking propensity, were sensitive to immediate punishment whereas adolescents with RD were found to display normal risk-taking propensity, yet showed a tendency of being less sensitive to punishment. The comorbidity ADHD + RD group had the highest delinquency score, and exhibited greatest risk taking and least sensitivity to punishment, which provided further support that comorbid condition might have stronger impact on risk taking or even delinquency than the pure groups. The present findings provides a useful picture of the risk taking pattern associated with different groups, allowing for effective matching for future prevention and intervention program.

Section snippets

What this paper adds?

Although research consistently demonstrates that the presence of ADHD and RD increases the probability of risky behavior, there is still an ongoing debate as to whether and how they are related. Moreover, those studies that have examined risk taking within the adolescent RD or ADHD population have focused primarily on pure groups, the question of whether the comorbid condition contribute to increased risk taking is still unknown. The current study aimed to answer all these question by examining

Participants

Participants were 143 boys between 11.25 and 16.83 years of age (M = 14.57; SD = 1.25) who were divided into four groups: AS (n = 37), RD (n = 35), AS + RD (n = 35), and control (n = 36). Participants were recruited from four local secondary schools; one parent association for children with RD and one parent association for children with ADHD. Participants of the control group were matched in age, gender and socio-economic background with the other 3 groups. All participants speak Cantonese as their first

Descriptive statistics

Table 1 summarizes the descriptive statistics for each group. Group differences were found in general intellectual ability (F (1, 142) = 3.37, p = .02, np2 = .07) and education level (F (1, 142) = .62, p < 01, np2 = .09). Post hoc pairwise comparisons revealed that the control group had significantly higher scores in general intellectual ability than the pure RD (p = .02) and comorbid groups (p < .01); and no significant difference was found between the control and pure AS groups (p = 16). For education level,

Risk taking in adolescents with AS

The current study aimed to examine and compare the risk taking propensity and sensitivity to punishment in four groups of adolescents, AS, RD, AS + RD and control, using a simulated risk task, the BART. Results suggested that AS was associated with the most risk-taking tendency, which further supported that this group of adolescents is a clinically significant subgroup associated with elevated risk for negative outcomes (Gadow and Nolan, 2002, Kuhne et al., 1997). This finding was also consistent

Limitations and conclusion

Despite general agreement of the current findings with similar studies, there were a number of methodological limitations. First, the sample size was relatively small with around 35 male participants in each group. Given the fact that there is significant development of neuropsychological processes during adolescence and that their delinquency manifestation or experiences would be highly variable. Future study with larger sample size may categorize participants with smaller age range (e.g. 11

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