Gender Differences in Auditory and Visual Attentional Performance in Children with and without ADHD

Abstract

Objective: Despite the relatively high prevalence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), the impairment of ADHD in women is underestimated due to the different ways the phenomenon manifests compared to traditional male symptoms. In order to close the gender gap in diagnosis and treatment, this study aims to explore the impact of gender on auditory and visual attention in children with and without ADHD.

Method: A total of 220 children with and without ADHD participated in this study. Their auditory and visual attention performances were analyzed by comparative computerized auditory and visual subtests.

Results: Auditory and visual attention performance in children with and without ADHD did affect by gender, including typically developing (TD) boys are better than TD girls at distinguishing visual targets from non-target stimuli. When performing attention tasks, TD girls generally maintained a cautious response, which was different from TD boys, who generally adopted positive response methods. ADHD girls suffered from more serious auditory inattention problems than ADHD boys; however, ADHD boys suffered from more auditory and visual impulsive problems than ADHD girls. The internal attention problems of female ADHD children were broader than that of their male ADHD peers and were also more severe, especially in problems of auditory omission and auditory response acuity.

Conclusions: ADHD children had a significant gap in auditory and visual attention performance compared to TD children. The research results support the impact of gender on the performance of auditory and visual attention in children with and without ADHD.

Keywords: ADHD; Auditory attention; Gender differences; Typically developing children; Visual attention.