Methylphenidate improves some but not all measures of ATTENTION, as measured by the TEA-Ch in medication-naïve children with ADHD

Abstract

The Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) is a reliable neuropsychological assessment of attention control in children. Methylphenidate (MPH) is an effective treatment to improve attentional difficulties in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Previous studies investigating the effects of MPH on attention performance of children with ADHD have produced mixed results and prior MPH usage may have confounded these results. No previous study has tested the effects of MPH on the entire TEA-Ch battery. This study investigated the effects of MPH on attention performance using the entire TEA-Ch in 51 medication-naïve children with ADHD compared with 35 nonmedicated typically developing children. All children were tested at baseline and after 6 weeks: The children with ADHD were medication-naïve at baseline, received MPH for 6 weeks and were tested whilst on medication at the second testing session. A beneficial effect of MPH administration was found on at least one subtest of each of the three forms of attention (selective, sustained, and attentional control) assessed by the TEA-Ch, independent of practice effects. MPH aided performance on the TEA-Ch tasks that were inherently nonarousing and that might require top-down control of attention. It is recommended that the TEA-Ch measures—Sky Search Count (selective attention),Score! (sustained attention), Creature Counting Time Taken for older children (attentional control), and Same Worlds (attentional control) be prioritized for use in future pharmacological studies using MPH.

Keywords:

• Methylphenidate
• Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

This work was supported by grants from the Irish Health Research Board, Science Foundation Ireland, and the Irish Higher Education Authority’s Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions. We would like to thank the referring child and adolescent psychiatrists from the Health Service Executive, South Western, Eastern and Midlands areas and the Lucena clinics. We would like to thank Marie Cox for data collection in Ireland. We would like to thank all the participating children and their families.

Conflict of interest: Professor Robertson is one of the authors of the TEA-Ch. No other conflicts of interest occur.

Notes

3. ¹With the TEA-Ch age-scaled scoring system, a higher score represents better performance.