Date of Award

Winter 2009

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

Department

Psychology

Program/Concentration

Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology

Committee Director

J. D. Ball

Committee Member

Desideria S. Hacker

Committee Member

Richard Handel

Committee Member

Kathrin Hartmann

Committee Member

Michael L. Stutts

Abstract

Diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a challenging practice with no definitive diagnostic test. This study sought to evaluate the use of a pattern of performance method of inference in ADHD assessment that examines an individual's general intellectual ability in comparison to his or her own attention skills. WISC-IV scores, IVA+Plus quotients, and basic demographic information were collected from patient files of children previously evaluated by the Eastern Virginia Medical School Neuropsychology Clinic. Children with and without ADHD were compared by analyzing the following difference or delta score discrepancies: (a) WISC-IV General Ability Index (GAI) minus WISC-IV Working Memory Index, (b) WISC-IV GAI minus WISC-IV Processing Speed Index, (c) WISC-IV GAI minus IVA+plus Full Scale Response Control Quotient, and (d) WISC-IV GAI minus IVA+plus Full Scale Attention Quotient. Contrary to preliminary hypotheses, analyses demonstrated no significant utility for the use of these delta scores in distinguishing children referred for psychological testing with and without ADHD. Potential reasons for this lack of predicted discriminate ability are posited.

Comments

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculties of The College of William and Mary, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk State University, Old Dominion University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Psychology in Clinical Psychology through the Virginia Consortium Program in Clinical Psychology.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/r0ty-5c53

ISBN

9781109559347

Download

Share

COinS