Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are potentially more exposed to reproaches than typically developing children, explain researchers. A behavioral experiment on reward and punishment highlights the cumulative effect of punishment in children with ADHD.
The point of the study:
Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are potentially more exposed to reproaches than typically developing children. Their difficulties with focusing, elevated activity levels and impulsive actions often get them into trouble with their parents, teachers and friends. This makes it important to find out how punishment affects the behaviour of children with ADHD. Are they more sensitive to punishment, or less sensitive to punishment? [To find out], a team of researchers from Japan and New Zealand presented children with ADHD and typically developing children with a computer-based game that involved reward and punishment.
Where can I find this study? The results of this study are published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
E. Furukawa, B. Alsop, P. Sowerby, S. Jensen, G. Tripp.Evidence for increased behavioral control by punishment in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2016; DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12635
Who participated?
Altogether, 210 children took part in the research, with 145 diagnosed with ADHD. All children were living in Japan or New Zealand and spoke English as their first language.
What did participants do? How did the study simulate “punishment” and measure its effects on children’s behavior?
“The chance of winning rewards was equal for the two games, but one of the games was designed to have a four times higher likelihood of losing: playing on that game, a child would be ‘punished’ more often than with the other one,” Tripp [one of the authors] explained. In both games, when a child won, the computer gave him or her 10 points and played a simple animation; when a child lost, the computer took away 5 points and played a laughing sound. All children began with a positive balance of 20 points and the game continued until either they reached 400 points or completed 300 trials. Each child won a prize at the end of the game. The rewards were also arranged to discourage children from playing on one game exclusively or switching every time. A session lasted typically half an hour. The reason for such an extended game was to observe fairly stable performance over time.
What were the results?
Both groups of children came to prefer the less punishing game, and played it more often. However, over time, a difference emerged between the two groups:
During the first 100 trials, there was no difference between the two groups of children. But later on, the preference for the less punishing alternative increased substantially in the children with ADHD, while the choices of the typically developing children were stable for the duration of the task. By the 200th trial, the children with ADHD were much less likely to play the more punishing game. The results suggest that children with ADHD avoid punishment more often over time than typically developing children. The latter seemed less distracted by punishment and kept their focus on winning.
One of the authors, Professor Gail Tripp, reported:
“Some of our first attempts to study ADHD and punishment were not very successful, because the children simply abandoned the task when they kept losing points or did not get enough rewards.“
She concludes:
“If a child with ADHD is reluctant in doing a task, or if the child gives up easily, it might be important for the parent or the teacher to check if the task has the appropriate balance of reward and punishment,” Tripp said. “We are not saying that the task has punishment built in, rather that the effort needed to do the task might be perceived as punishing by the child. The more effortful a task is, the more incentives a child is going to need to keep persisting, and simple but frequent rewards, such as smiles or words of encouragements, can help children with ADHD to stay on the task.”
In other words, the worst possible thing parents and teachers can do is what they normally do: harshly criticize the children’s behavior, treat it as a character flaw, and fail to offer the support and teach the organizational skills that would make the task possible.
Because they’re more likely to avoid punishment (including failure), children with ADHD risk developing a habit of avoiding difficult tasks and experiencing learned helplessness. Even if they later take medication and manage their disabilities, avoidance and learned helplessness make it hard to accomplish anything. I can tell you from experience that this emotional fallout magnifies the impact of ADHD traits and makes it harder to manage them.
This is actually insanely depressing because this essentially describes my life.
If it makes you feel any better…
First of all, this study suggests that if you do avoid difficult tasks, and agonize over it, it’s not all your fault and it’s not a character flaw. It’s just a natural reaction to how your brain works and how you were treated, which isn’t useful any more. Lots of people, especially if they experienced traumatic things as kids, end up having to work on bad coping mechanisms like this. It’s miserable and unfair, but it doesn’t make you a bad or broken person.
Second, you’re not alone! This describes my life too, and apparently a lot of other Tumblr people’s, too. Let’s keep trying together.
