Dichotic listening and response inhibition in children with comorbid anxiety disorders and ADHD

Objective: To compare children with comorbid anxiety disorders (ANX) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with children with either pure disorder and normal controls on 2 cognitive measures to elucidate the cognitive basis of this comorbidity. Method: Four groups of children aged 8 to 12 years (n = 64 total) were assessed: ANX, ADHD, both conditions (comorbid group), and neither condition (normal control group). Groups were compared on 2 cognitive measures: a measure of auditory emotional perception (dichotic listening task) and a measure of response inhibition (stop task), chosen for their relative specificity for ANX and ADHD, respectively, in previous studies. Results: Multivariate analyses of variance revealed significant group differences on the dichotic listening task (p < .05), with the comorbid group differing from the control group on emotion targets (p < .01) and the ADHD group differing from the control group on word targets (p < .05). On the stop task, the ADHD group appeared slower than the other diagnostic groups on both go and stop-signal reaction times, but differences were not significant. Conclusions: In this study, children with comorbid ANX and ADHD showed reduced auditory emotion recognition relative to controls but did not show response inhibition deficits. Thus they appeared cognitively distinct from children with either pure disorder.