ArticleThe South African journal of psychiatry : SAJP : the journal of the Society of Psychiatrists of South Africa2022
Working memory and set-shifting in school-aged children classified as having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Article in The South African journal of psychiatry : SAJP : the journal of the Society of Psychiatrists of South Africa, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Altered auditory attention and functional connectivity in the auditory cortex of children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Distinct age-related alterations in alpha-beta neural oscillatory activity during verbal working memory encoding in children and adolescents.The Journal of physiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAttention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common psychiatric disorder reported in both children and adults; it is often associated with a variety of executive functioning deficits.
aimThis study investigated the extent to which working memory and set-shifting are impaired in school children with and without ADHD.
settingThis included primary schools in Lepelle-Nkumpi Municipality in Limpopo province, South Africa.
methodsA total of 216 children (108 screened positive for ADHD and 108 matched controls without ADHD symptoms), aged between 6 and 15 years, participated in the study. The performance of the two groups was compared on tests of working memory (Forward and Backward Digit Span subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Fourth Edition) and set-shifting (Trail Making Test Part B). The scores were analysed as a function of gender and age.
resultsThe group with possible ADHD performed worse than the neurotypical control group on tasks of working memory and set-shifting. The results did not indicate that gender affected performance. However, the younger age group performed worse than the older children.
conclusionChildren classified as ADHD showed significantly more impairments in working memory and set-shifting than neurotypical controls. Neither test showed any significant difference between male and female performance, whilst age was shown to affect performance on both tests. Early identification and treatment of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are crucial to their well-being.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.