(PS1-D89) Differences in Auditory and Visual Notx-cpts for Preschool Children at High Risk and Low Risk for ADHD

ADHD is a prevalent disorder associated with inappropriate inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Elevated externalizing behaviors associated with ADHD become detectable in a classroom setting by preschool in some cases. Early detection of externalizing behaviors is important as they may be malleable with intervention. Two externalizing behaviors exhibited by children with ADHD are inattention and impulsivity. Previous work suggests that different sensory modality of information, namely auditory or visual presentation, may influence inattention and impulsivity. The continuous performance task (CPT) is a sustained attention and response selection task that simultaneously measures inattention and impulsivity. It has both auditory and visual versions. The CPT accuracy measure of inattention are omission errors, or absence of a response to a stimulus. The CPT accuracy measure of impulsivity are commission errors, or a response not provoked by a stimulus. Research has found strong correlations between visual and auditory omission errors for individuals with an inattentive presentation, and weak correlations between visual and auditory commission errors for individuals with a hyperactive-impulsive (HI) presentation. This suggests that inattention may be a unitary, cross-modal construct, while HI is modality-specific. This trend has been demonstrated in school-aged children diagnosed with ADHD, but not in preschool-aged children at risk for ADHD. This has also been demonstrated for X-CPTs, or CPTs where individuals respond to a target stimulus, X, but not for NotX-CPTs, where individuals respond to everything but a target stimulus, X. It is important to investigate if this trend is held in preschool children at risk for ADHD. In the present study, we examined whether there were group differences in commission errors and omission errors on visual and auditory NotX-CPTs in preschoolers at high risk for ADHD and children at low risk for ADHD. Children (N=120) were determined to be at high risk (N=64) for ADHD if their teachers endorsed at least 4 of the items on the Symptoms and Normal-Behaviors Rating Scale (SWAN) and low risk (N=56) if their teachers endorsed less than 4 of the items on the SWAN. Total omission and commission scores from auditory and visual NotX-CPTs were utilized for comparisons. Children at high risk for ADHD (M=46.96) had higher auditory omission errors than children at low risk for ADHD (M=33.89), t( 119)=2.2, p< .05, d=.402. Children at high risk for ADHD (M=48.24) also had higher visual omission errors than children at low risk for ADHD (M=31.63), t(119)=3.03, p< .05, d=.550. Children at high risk for ADHD and low risk for ADHD did not differ on auditory or visual commission errors. Auditory and visual omission errors (r=.675) and commission errors (r=.601) were significantly correlated in children at high risk for ADHD. Auditory and visual omission errors (r=.743) and commission errors (r=.379) were also significantly correlated in children at low risk for ADHD.  Results suggest that the trend between modalities seen later in development is not present in a preschool sample. Future investigation of the relationship of modality-specific performance within at-risk samples of preschool-aged children is needed.