Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder that affects academic, social, and health functioning. The psychometric properties of measures commonly used in diagnostic settings to assess the constructs of attention, hyperactivity, and executive functioning, including concurrent and incremental validity with other commonly used measures, are not well-established. Additionally, these specific psychometric properties within ecological samples of children and adolescents presenting to community-based clinics is infrequent. The purpose of this dissertation was to describe a sample of children and adolescents presenting to a community-based mental health clinic and to test the concurrent and incremental validity of parent- and teacher-report questionnaires and neuropsychological measures of inattention, hyperactivity, and executive functioning. Participants included a consecutive sample of 597 youth aged six to eighteen years presenting to a community-based mental health clinic for a psychological assessment between 2010 and 2019. Measures included the BASC (2nd and 3rd editions), Conners 3 (long and short forms), BRIEF (1st and 2nd editions), D-KEFS, NEPSY-II, and CPT (2nd and 3rd editions). Approximately 50% of individuals were diagnosed with ADHD. Correlations between attention, hyperactivity, and executive function constructs on questionnaires were significantly and moderately-to-strongly correlated (Spearman’s  = .27-.82) to each other (e.g., BASC Hyperactivity and Conners Hyperactivity/Impulsivity subscales) and across parent and teacher forms (e.g., Conners Parent Inattention and Conners Teacher Inattention subscales). Constructs measured by neuropsychological tests were not significantly correlated to similar constructs measured by other neuropsychological measures or questionnaires (e.g., inhibition measured by NEPSY-II Response Set and BRIEF Inhibition subscale; Spearman’s  = .02-.38). Logistic regression analyses suggested that measures such as the BASC, BRIEF, NEPSY-II, and CPT do not clinically significantly increase prediction of ADHD diagnosis above and beyond the Conners 3. Results indicate convergence of information with potential redundancy in the assessment and diagnosis of ADHD across questionnaire measures and informants. Questionnaires and neuropsychological measures were not correlated, suggesting they measure different constructs or different aspects of the same construct. Results indicate that clinicians may sufficiently rely on questionnaires and reduce the number of other neuropsychological measures administered during a diagnostic assessment without significantly reducing diagnostic accuracy. However, the value of evidence of symptoms in multiple settings and converging information should still be considered.

Bakgrund: Fysioterapeutiska interventioner som exempelvis fysisk aktivitet har positiv effekt på flertalet symptom hos personer med ADHD. Dessa personer har även påvisad nedsatt motorisk kontroll och motorisk färdighet jämfört med neurotypiska personer. Trots påvisade positiva effekter nyttjas inte fysioterapeuters kompetens vid rehabilitering av ADHD. Syfte: Syftet var att kartlägga det aktuella kunskapsläget angående fysisk träning som fysioterapeutisk intervention för ökad motorisk färdighet och ökad motorisk kontroll hos personer med ADHD. Metod: En artikelsökning utfördes i databaserna Pubmed, PEDro, Cinahl, Web of Science och Scopus. Sökningen resulterade i elva relevanta artiklar varav fyra av dessa inkluderades. Referenslistor på inkluderade artiklar och review-studier granskades, vilket resulterade i ytterligare två inkluderade artiklar. Alla artiklar kvalitetsgranskades och sammanställdes i en resultattabell. Resultat: Fem artiklar, varav fyra av dessa med högt bevisvärde, visar att fysisk träning har signifikant effekt på motorisk färdighet. En artikel med högt bevisvärde indikerar att fysisk träning har signifikant effekt på motorisk kontroll. Effekten verkar inte bero på vilken typ av träning som utfördes, däremot visar en studie att högintensiv träning verkar ha bättre effekt på motorisk färdighet än lågintensiv. Konklusion: Fysisk träning verkar ha effekt på motorisk färdighet och motorisk kontroll hos personer med ADHD oavsett typ av träningsform. Högintensiv träning verkar ge bättre effekt på motorisk färdighet än lågintensiv. Brist på forskning inom området leder till svårigheter att dra tydliga slutsatser utifrån dessa resultat, därav behöver fler studier utföras.

Text in Afrikaans / In this study quantitative research is employed to determine if cognitive control therapy can successfully be utilized in a group situation to alleviate cognitive deficiency in learners with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Learners with ADHD often do not gain from traditional play- and psychotherapy due to the fact that they do not possess the required cognitive structure necessary to support successful learning. Many of these learners do not receive sufficient assistance and support due to a shortage of government supported educational psychological aid. An empirical investigation of limited scope was performed to establish whether cognitive deficiencies can be alleviated by means of applying cognitive control therapy in a group situation. A one-group pretest-posttest design was utilized where the same group of subjects was studies before and after the experimental treatment. The results indicate that the cognitive control therapy program resulted in a considerable change. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Voorligting)

The aim of this research was to investigate the way in which ADHD is understood and constructed within Romania and Scotland, comparing and contrasting the discourses that constitute ADHD within different cultural contexts.Overall, this study employed a mixed method design based on a concurrent nested approach which was undertaken in 2 phases. In phase 1, 50 parents, 72 primary school teachers and 48 support staff from Scotland, and 50 parents, 86 primary school teachers and 57 support staff from Romania, completed a self-report questionnaire that measured their knowledge and attitudes towards ADHD. The statistical results showed that, for the knowledge of ADHD test, both sample of parents, teachers and support staff scored the highest at symptoms/diagnosis subscale. Parents,teachers and support staff from the Romanian sample scored the lowest at the treatment subscale whereas the Scottish respondents had difficulties in answering questions about the nature, causes and prognosis of ADHD. In terms of their self-reported attitudes, both samples of Scottish and Romanian parents, teachers and support staff scored the highest on the affective attitude subscale. Scottish teachers and support staff scored the lowest on the behavioural attitude subscale whereas Romanian teachers and support staff scored the lowest on the cognitive attitude subscale. On the other hand, both samples of Scottish and Romanian parents scored the lowest on the behavioural attitude subscale. These patterns were further explored in phase 2 of the study, where 5 Scottish and Romanian mothers, 3 Scottish and Romanian primary-school teachers and 3 Scottish and Romanian support staff were selected to take part in a semi-structured interview. Parents, teachers and support staff from both countries responded within a medical model of disability employing themes such as ADHD as a medical condition, the medicalisation of behaviour, behaviour as out of control or the specialness of ADHD. However, participants also adopted a social conceptualisation of ADHD, referring to ADHD as a social phenomenon, resisting medicalisation and describing the educational and medical "wrongs". Reflecting the uncertainty in the field, participants’ conceptualisation of ADHD expanded, modified or even shifted from one perspective to another. The cross-cultural comparisons used the Appadurai's theoretical framework of "scapes" to explain the global nature of ADHD as well as the differences between Scottish and Romanian parents, teachers and support staff in relation to the three most important results of this study: treatment of ADHD, inclusion of children diagnosed with ADHD in mainstream education and parents’ and teachers’ willingness to get involved. The findings have been used to develop a multidisciplinary framework for support, empowering teachers and parents with knowledge of ADHD and improving cross-professional relationships. The fundamental idea of this framework is that it moves beyond the deficit paradigm, helping teachers, parents and stakeholders to be alert and responsive to the various conceptualisations of ADHD and to understand how these schemata have come into existence in specific periods of time and in different cultural contexts.

Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder diagnoses have been rising steadily since the early 1990s. Today, about 10 percent of the school-aged population has been diagnosed with the disorder, and prevalence is increasing steadily among preschool children and adults. Most of the individuals diagnosed with the disorder use stimulant medications to treat the symptoms. Both the rapidly rising number of diagnoses and the substantial variation in prevalence and treatment utilization -- across states, regions, gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status -- have attracted attention and raised concerns about under and over recognition and treatment. The implicit justification for the increasing awareness and recognition of the disorder is that it is a valid clinical object that matches medically-proven treatments with those reliably expected to benefit from them. From this perspective, the uptake in prevalence results from changes in environmental determinants or scientific advances in neurology, psychiatry, diagnostic protocols, or pharmaceutical research. But a widespread argument among teachers, parents, policy makers, the general public, and academic researchers -- including sociologists -- is that the development and success of the disorder results from a medicalization process. Medicalization encompasses a social construction critique that contradicts the environmental/scientific advance claims, but medicalization research also emphasizes macro-level actors that forcibly advance the medical label and treatment. Traditionally, medicalization studies focused on the disproportionate power of the medical profession vis-a-vis patients, but more recently they have begun to emphasize a broader range of actors pursuing a medical label -- pharmaceutical companies and even consumers influenced by new forms of advertising. Those arguments assume that educational institutions act in concert with those pushing the medical label. The goal of this dissertation is to provide an account of diagnostic prevalence and treatment utilization (and their uneven distribution) that debunks explanations based solely in science but that also demonstrates the insufficiency of the medicalization account. Together, the chapters show that there is no correlation in timing between the surge in diagnoses and the processes implied by either medicalization or scientific progress arguments, there is little support in the micro-level data for a strictly medicalization account, and there is substantial evidence that macro-level educational institutions and the school context play a significant role in reshaping the category. The chapters emphasize that the success of the category lies in the confluence of technoscientific innovation, social control of troublesome behaviors, the increased activism of parents along with direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, encroachments of the law into student discipline and into the health care industry, the institutional needs of schools, a cultural emphasis on high academic achievement, and the influence of parallel and predecessor classifications, among other factors. The category -- a result of multiple institutions working to recraft expertise – is a school-specific medical disorder that includes a heterogeneous symptom complex, one that is understood differently within school and medical milieu. Although the chapters do not disprove medicalization, they suggest that the medicalization framework overstates the importance of medical professionals and medicine broadly defined for the success of the category.

Text in Afrikaans / In this study quantitative research is employed to determine if cognitive control therapy can successfully be utilized in a group situation to alleviate cognitive deficiency in learners with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Learners with ADHD often do not gain from traditional play- and psychotherapy due to the fact that they do not possess the required cognitive structure necessary to support successful learning. Many of these learners do not receive sufficient assistance and support due to a shortage of government supported educational psychological aid. An empirical investigation of limited scope was performed to establish whether cognitive deficiencies can be alleviated by means of applying cognitive control therapy in a group situation. A one-group pretest-posttest design was utilized where the same group of subjects was studies before and after the experimental treatment. The results indicate that the cognitive control therapy program resulted in a considerable change. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Voorligting)

This graduation thesis deals with problems of motivation in children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). The theoretical part contains the definition of ADHD, definition, typical symptoms, factors contributing to the emergence of sowing disorder (malfunction) and problems of children with ADHD. The next section describes the motivation, resources and ways to motivate students. The practical part is devoted to research, the technique used was a questionnaire and interview. The research group consisted twenty-five ADHD children from the second degree of primary schools. The research question was set up: Do motivation in children with ADHD from children without the disorder differ any way? The aim was to determine the level of motivation of students with ADHD on school work. This mentioned graduation work will be used to familiarize the public with ADHD problems, this work could serve as an outline of the targeted educational development of motivation of students with ADHD.

Master of Science / Department of Psychology / Mary E. Cain / Rats reared in an enriched condition (EC) with novel stimuli and social contact with cohorts display less sensitization to nicotine than rats reared under impoverished conditions (IC). However, it is currently unknown what effect differential rearing has on nicotine-induced conditioned hyperactivity. The present study determined whether differential rearing affects conditioning to a nicotine-associated context. In addition, this study also examined the effects of mecamylamine, an antagonist to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, on conditioned hyperactivity and sensitization. This antagonistic drug has been shown to attenuate the locomotor effects of nicotine. In the current study, EC, IC, and social condition (SC) rats were reared from 21 to 51 days of age before training for the acquisition of conditioned hyperactivity and sensitization. Nicotine (0.4 mg/kg) was administered prior to 1-h locomotor sessions. Conditioned hyperactivity testing followed. Rats then received 5 sessions of sensitization training followed by a 16-day drug-free rest period before being tested for sensitization. Mecamylamine (1.0 mg/kg) was administered to rats prior to the conditioned hyperactivity test and sensitization test. Nicotine treatment resulted in sensitization and conditioned hyperactivity in all differential rearing groups. EC rats displayed less locomotor activity in response to nicotine than both IC and SC rats. Pretreatment with mecamylamine blocked the expression of conditioned hyperactivity in EC and SC rats and attenuated sensitization in all three rearing groups. These findings suggest that environmental enrichment may alter nAChR binding during development and may be a protective factor in the initiation and relapse of smoking behavior.

Thesis (M.Ed. (Education Management )) - Central University of Technology, Free State, 2014 / In keeping with international trends in education, South Africa has embraced inclusive education which makes provision for all diverse learners with learning barriers, such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, to be educated and included in the mainstream classroom. ADHD is a common disorder known to be associated with behavioural and academic difficulties, creating challenges for both teachers and learners. Putting inclusive education into practice within diverse classrooms imply that teachers have to support and teach according to a variety of needs and preferences of learners, including learners with ADHD. I believe that teachers present one of the most valuable sources of information with regard to referral and diagnosis of the disorder. They are also responsible for creating an environment that is conducive to academic, social and emotional success for children with ADHD. However, since some doubt exists as to whether teachers have the appropriate knowledge of ADHD and management skills to fulfill this important role, this research study has sought to examine and evaluate how the presence of learners with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) impacts upon the educational and behavioural climate of the mainstream classroom in the Foundation Phase in primary schools in the Lejwleputswa District. The study moreover addressed the knowledge levels of teachers and support systems in place at both institutional and departmental level. Analysis of the information gathered through interviews revealed that ADHD learners have a predominantly negative impact on the mainstream classroom. The study found that teachers often hold negative beliefs regarding behaviour problems exhibited by ADHD learners, tend to be pessimistic about teaching these learners, and feel that they require extra time and effort to teach them. This could be attributed to a lack of knowledge and management skills of ADHD. Furthermore, it became evident that the majority of teachers view medication as the most effective treatment strategy. Recommendations for the DoE, teachers and further study were made.

Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)