Teacher Ratings of Attention Problems in Children Experimentally Classified as Exhibiting Attention Deficit Disorder with and without Hyperactivity

From a total of 625 children, 30 children in grades 2–5 were experimentally classified as having Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity (ADD/H: N = 10) or Attention Deficit without Hyperactivity (ADD/WO: N = 20) using teacher ratings of behavior on the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist (RBPC). These groups were compared to normal control children (N = 20) on each of the items that comprise the Attention Problem-Immaturity (API) factor of the RBPC. Both ADD groups were rated by teachers as exhibiting significantly greater attention problems than controls on 12 of the 16 items on the factor. However, the ADD/H children were rated as more irresponsible, sloppy, distractible, impulsive, less sluggish, more likely to answer without thinking, and faster in finishing assignments than the ADD/WO children. In addition, only the ADD/H group differed significantly from controls on ratings of impulsivity and anwering without thinking, and only the ADD/WO group differed from controls on ratings of sluggishness and drowsiness. A stepwise discriminant analysis showed that the two ADD groups could be accurately discriminated (average canonical r² = 0.83) by a combination of ratings of impulsivity, sluggishness, immaturity, sloppiness, slowness, and need for supervision. These results suggest that ADD/H and ADD/WO may exhibit dissimilar types of attention deficits.

Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 24, 5:613–616, 1985.

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