Are Intellectual Processes Important in the Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD?

It is widely accepted that there are two sets of behaviors associated with the di-agnosis of attention deficit described as ADHD Hyperactive–Impulsive (ADHD–H) and ADHD Inattentive (ADHD–I) types along with a combined type that includes both dimensions. In this article we suggest that these types of ADHD should be assessed using a vari-ety of measures and procedures but that psychometrically sound measures of ba-sic psychological processes must be in-cluded. Assessment of the basic psychological processes addresses issues such as the role of “executive functions” in ADHD–H, the selective attention problems of those with ADHD–I, differ-ential diagnosis of children with ADHD–H and ADHD–I as well as those with learning disabilities, and educa-tional and behavioral treatment plan-ning. This discussion will include references to previously published re-search papers but should also serve as a stimulus for needed research. Essentially, we suggest that ADHD–H can be viewed as a failure of what we (see Naglieri & Das, 2005) call Planning processing and ADHD–I is a failure of Attention process-ing. This discussion will begin with an examination of the connections between conceptualizations of these types of attention deficit and a theory of intelligence based on cognitive processing. ADHD AND COGNITION Children with ADHD–H are character-ized as having poor behavioral inhibition (Barkley, 1997). Their symptoms include, for example, problems with inhibition of prepotent responses which limit control of behavior and lead to poor planning and anticipation; reduced sensitivity to errors, poor organization, impaired ver-bal problem-solving and self–directed speech, poor rule-governed behavior, and poor self–regulation of emotion; problems developing, using and moni-toring organizational strategies; and self–regulation and inhibition prob-lems (Barkley, 2003). These children are sometimes described as showing diffi-culty with executive functions or metacognition which has been associ-ated with the prefrontal lobes (Roth &amp