Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ArticlesPreschool Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Impairments in Behavioral, Social, and School Functioning
Section snippets
Participants
Ninety-four children between 3 and 5 years of age (mean = 4.0; SD = 0.09) from a moderately sized urban area in the northeastern United States participated in the investigation. Fifty-eight of these children (50 boys, 8 girls) were identified as having one of the three subtypes of ADHD. Thirty-six children (20 boys, 16 girls) were assigned to a normal control group. Participants in both groups were primarily from middle-class socioeconomic backgrounds and predominantly white (ADHD group: 79%
RESULTS
Results were analyzed within each general category of dependent measures using Hotelling T2 tests (i.e., multivariate form of the t test) with an α level of .05. Significant Hotelling T2 tests were followed by univariate t tests using an α level of .01 to control for experiment-wise type I error. Effect sizes (ES) were calculated for the analysis of each variable to elucidate the magnitude of group differences in standard deviation units. Effect sizes were calculated by taking the difference
DISCUSSION
Young children with ADHD exhibited more problem behavior and were less socially skilled than their normal counterparts according to parent and teacher ratings. Group differences in behavior ratings were expected because (1) children were assigned to groups based, in part, on behavior ratings, and (2) prior research studies have documented high levels of disruptive behavior and social performance deficits in young children with ADHD (Alessandri, 1992, Byrne et al., 1998, Shelton et al., 1998).
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This study was funded by a grant from the D.R. Pool Heathcare Trust, Allentown PA. The authors thank our research assistants including Amy Boyajian, Alexander Hirsch, Jessica Hoffman, Karen Neifer, Kristin Renouf, and Marcie Handler.