Prompted Cognitive Testing as a Diagnostic Compensation for Attentional Deficits: The Raven Standard Progressive Matrices and Attention Deficit Disorder

Authors

  • Miriam Cherkes-Julkowski
  • Jonathan Stolzenberg
  • Laura Segal

Abstract

Dysfunction in controlled focus of attention is presented as a central issue in understanding and diagnosing attention deficit disorder (ADD). This study investigates the effect of prompting, or directing/controlling attention during a reasoning task on the perfonnance of four groups of subjects: 1) children withADD who were unmedicated; 2) children withADD who were medicated; 3) children with learning disabilities; and, 4) children who were referred but did not meet the criteria for ADD, learning disabilities, or any other DSM-III-R category. Although all four populations benefited from prompting, gains were greatest for the ADD, unmedicated group. Infonnation processing and achievement correlates ofprompting effects were examined through regression analyses. Prompting was related to  a different set of cognitive processes in each group. In the ADD, unmedicated group a measure of working memory shared most variance with the prompting effect and thus supported the relationship between cognitive control and attention dysfunction as it is manifested in ADD. Group performance was compared and the effects of medication on cognitive performance discussed. Advantages ofthe Raven test and the prompting methodology for diagnosis and intervention planning are discussed.

Issue

Section

Articles