Department of Educational Psychology, Texas A & M University, College Station, Texas 77843-4225, USA
Address for correspondence: Cynthia A. Riccio, Ph.D., Department of Educational Psychology, Mail Stop 4225, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4225. Voice: 979-862-4906.
criccio{at}acs.tamu.edu
Historically, the focus for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD) has been on children, with considerable research
and many opinions available in this area. More recently, the
focus has been expanded to include ADHD in adults. Assessment
of ADHD in adults is complicated by the high rate of co-occurring
disorders as well as symptom overlap with a number of disorders.
One popular family of measures for the assessment of attention
and executive control is the continuous performance test (CPT).
A review of the available research on CPTs reveals that they
are quite sensitive to CNS dysfunction. This is both a strength
and a limitation of CPTs in that multiple disorders can result
in impaired performance on a CPT. The high sensitivity of CPTs
is further complicated by the multiple variations of CPTs available,
some of which may be more sensitive or demonstrate better specificity
to ADHD in adults than others. If CPTs are to be used clinically,
further research will be needed to answer the questions raised
by this review.
