Corrélats cognitifs et relationnels associés aux troubles de l'attentionavec/sans hyperactivité

Objective: To retrospectively examine visual attention performances and early parent-child relationship characteristics in an OPD clinical sample of ADHD youths. Method: The sample included 20 hyperactive drug naïve youths consecutively referred for attention evaluation to a Child & Adolescent Psychiatry OPD between 2004 and 2006. Demographic and clinical data were collected through a chart review process whereas attentional performances were independently assessed using the Conners's Continuous Performance Task device (CPT-II). Early parent-child relationships data were ascertained through the team consensus best-estimate procedure with respect to Berger's psychoanalytically-derived classification. Results: Sixty percent of the sample presented with a DSM-IV-TR inattentive (n=1) or mixed (n=11) ADHD subtype whereas others participants displayed ADHD nos. Reaction Time (RT) variability was negatively correlated with age and was significantly associated with the DSM-IV-TR ADHD group. Taken separately, none of the Berger's correlates was correlated with either the clinical picture or the CPT performances. However, a composite score of early mother-child adversity was significantly associated with the DSM IV-TR ADHD group and not with the RT variability. Conclusion: Our results are consistent with current literature which shows that a high variability in RT is associated with ADHD. However, no association was found between those early nurturing disturbances and cognitive variables such as RT overvariability.