Risk-taking propensity and sensitivity to punishment in adolescents with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder symptoms and/or reading disability
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
References (49)
- et al.
Two measures of sensation seeking as predictors of alcohol use among high school males
Personality and Individual Differences
(1997) - et al.
Decision-making deficits, linked to a dysfunctional ventromedial prefrontal cortex, revealed in alcohol and stimulant abusers
Neuropsychologia
(2001) The development of risk-taking: A multi-perspective review
Developmental Review
(2006)- et al.
The effects of methylphenidate on decision making in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Biological Psychiatry
(2008) - et al.
Risk-taking and self-regulation: a systematic review of the analysis of delinquency outcomes in the juvenile justice intervention literature 1996–2009
International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience
(2015) - et al.
Age norms for impulsiveness, venturesomeness, and empathy in adults
Personality and Individual Differences
(1985) - et al.
Deliberation affects risk taking beyond sensation seeking
Personality and Individual Differences
(2004) - et al.
Complex decision-making in early childhood
Brain and Cognition
(2004) - et al.
Targeting adolescent risk-taking behaviors: The contributions of egocentricism and sensation-seeking
Journal of Adolescence
(2000) - et al.
Sensation seeking as a predictor of positive and negative risk behaviour among adolescents
Personality and Individual Differences
(2001)
Impact of comorbid oppositional or conduct problems on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
Reading disability in adjudicated youth: Prevalence rates, current models, traditional and innovative treatments
Aggression and Violent Behavior
Manual for the teacher's report form and 1991 profile
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and behavioral inhibition: A meta-analytic review of the stop-signal paradigm
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology
The psychology of criminal conduct and effective treatment
Separating genuine cases of reading disability from reading deficits caused by predominantly inattentive ADHD behaviour
Journal of Learning Disabilities
Impulsiveness subtraits: Arousal and information processing
Adolescent brain development and the risk for alcohol and other drug problems
Neuropsychology Review
The nature and development of decision-making: A self-regulation model
Decision making: A self-regulation perspective on drug use and abuse
Routine activity and rational choice
The Hong Kong test of specific learning difficulties in reading and writing for primary school students
Biased decision-making processes in aggressive boys
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Spear Motivational systems in adolescence: possible implications for age differences in substance abuse and other risk-taking behaviors
Brain and Cognition
Cited by (7)
Insensitivity to response-contingent feedback in adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD)
2017, Brain and LanguageCitation Excerpt :To assess sensitivity to reward (i.e., making more pumps after a trial of an unexploded balloon), I subtracted the number of pumps made on an unexploded balloon trial (i.e., a successful collection of money) from the number of pumps made on the balloon trial immediately following the unexploded balloon trial. Positive values mean more pumps following an unexploded balloon trial, indicating that the role of reward comes into play (see Humphreys & Lee, 2011; Poon & Ho, 2016, for a similar method). Independent-samples t-tests were performed to compare the difference of sensitivity to punishment and sensitivity to reward between the DLD and the comparison group.
Probabilistic Decision-Making in Children With Dyslexia
2022, Frontiers in NeuroscienceEvaluating dual-process theory of decision-making in Chinese delinquent adolescents
2020, Australian PsychologistRisky Decision Making in Psychological Disorders
2020, Risky Decision Making in Psychological Disorders‘Hey, look at me’: An {auto}ethnographic account of experiencing ADHD symptoms within sport
2019, Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health