ARTICLES
Motivational Effects on Motor Timing in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

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ABSTRACT

Objective

This study was designed to clarify whether poor performance of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) on motor timing tasks reflects a true deficit in the temporal organization of motor output or is due to a lack of intrinsic motivation.

Method

Eighteen children with ADHD (age 8-12) were compared with 18 age- and gender-matched normal controls with respect to timing precision, timing variability, and the frequency of extreme under- and overestimations during a 1-second interval production task. Monetary reward, response cost, and no reward were implemented to manipulate motivation.

Results

Children with ADHD produced significantly more inaccurate and more variable time intervals and exhibited a larger number of extreme over- and underestimations than control children. Although all children performed significantly better when monetary incentives were applied, group differences were not eliminated.

Conclusions

In this study, no evidence was found for a motivational deficit as an explanation for impaired performance on a time production task in ADHD. Rather, results provide clear support for a generic motor timing deficit, probably due to a dysfunctional frontostriatocerebellar network involved in temporal aspects of motor preparation.

Section snippets

Selection of Participants

Children with ADHD were recruited via the Dutch Parent Association of Children With ADHD and Other Developmental Disorders. Only those children were included that met the following criteria: (a) a formal clinical diagnosis of ADHD by the child's health care professional; (b) no neurological, sensory, or motor impairment; (c) no learning disability or other developmental or behavioral disorder except oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or conduct disorder (CD); and (d) no medication other than

Self-Reported Motivation

Self-reports using the visual analogue scales indicated that there was a significant effect of reinforcement on how much children were looking forward to doing the task (question 1), implying that our experimental manipulation was successful (F2,33 = 4.67, p = .016, ηp2 = 0.22). Pairwise comparisons demonstrated that children were more enthusiastic about the task in the reward condition than in the other two conditions (reward versus neutral: F1,34 = 7.40, p = .010, ηp2 = 0.18; response cost

Conclusion

This study aimed at testing two competing explanations regarding poor timing performance in ADHD. The first explanation states that dysfunctional neural circuits involved in motor timing are primarily responsible for timing disabilities. The second explanation assumes that a motivational deficit underlies poor timing performance. To address this issue, we manipulated motivation in a time production paradigm by implementing different reinforcement conditions.

Consistent with previous studies

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    Disclosure: The authors have no financial relationships to disclose.

    The authors thank Maartje van der Meij and Patrick van der Molen for their assistance in collecting the data.

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