Predictive Accuracy of the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning in Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Reading Difficulties

Abstract

The predictive accuracy of the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning (WRAML; Sheslow & Adams, 1990) over and above more standardized diagnostic tools in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and reading disabilities (RD) was examined. Fifty-three children with ADHD, 63 with RD, 63 with ADHD-RD, and 112 normal comparison children were administered the WRAML, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III; Wechsler, 1991), the Achenbach (1991) Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised (WJ-R; Woodcock & Johnson, 1989). Results of a series of discriminant function analyses revealed that the academic, intellectual, and behavioral measures could correctly classify 73.1% of children, but the WRAML subtests alone were able to correctly classify only 58.5% of participants. Combining all of the memory, academic, intellectual, and behavioral measures resulted in 77.5% of cases being correctly classified. These results suggest that the use of a measure of memory functioning such as the WRAML did not significantly improve the predictive accuracy of a diagnosis of ADHD, RD, or both over and above more standard diagnostic academic, intellectual, and behavioral measures.