An Event-Related Potentials Study For Chinese Characters Cognition In Normal Children And Children With ADHD

Objective By analyzing children aged from 7 to 12 years old semantic processing ERP (event related potentials) related amplitude changes, to examine the neuropsychological development mechanism about semantic processing of Chinese characters in children,at the same time, By analying the feature of ERP between normal and ADHD children evoked by Chinese characters, to explore mechanism of semantic processing in ADHD children with langguage obstacle.Methods using Chinese characters as visual stimulus, 120 girls and boys, which divided into six groups by age, participated in the experiment. in addition,By analying the feature of ERP between normal and ADHD children evoked by Chinese characters, to explore mechanism of semantic processing in ADHD children with language obstacle. 30 normal children which came from the above mentioned, participated in the second experiment as control group. Result Part 1:â‘ behavior suggested the RT of unrelated conditions was longer than that of related conditions, expected for 7 years old;â‘¡ERPs waveforms and componets are coincident for all groups children, including N1,P2,N2,P3; the amplitude of N400 under unrelated condition were higher than that of N400 under related condition, the difference was statistically significant.â‘¢N400 amplitude under Related stimulate condition were no significant differences among 7,8 and 9-year-old, but there were statistically significant between 7 and 12-year-old. N400 amplitude under unrelated and pseudowords conditions were statistically significant between 7 and 9-year-old , so were between 9 and 12-year-old.Part 2:â‘ ERPs waveforms and componets are coincident for two groups children,including N1,P2,N2,P3;â‘¡N400 amplitude of ADHD children were larger than that normal children in related condition.â‘¢P300 amplitude of ADHD children were smaller than that normal children in unrelated condition.Conclusion N400 amplitude changes with the age, the change of N400 amplitude reflected the children's development of the semantic processing, and this change was not continuous, the amplitude was gradual increased from 7 to 9 years old, then gradual decreased from 9 to 12 years old. semantic priming were not obvious in ADHD Children,and the langguage processing was more difficult than that of the normal children.