Different Level Of Motivation On Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (adhd) Children To Delay Gratification

Using a variety of experimental tasks, the present study examined the effect of motivation on delay of gratification (DG) in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and normal controls.The data allowed us to explore the underlying mechanisms of delay of gratification and their deficits in children with ADHD.This study includes three experiments. Experiment 1 investigated the delay of gratification ability and delay strategies in waiting alone situation. ADHD and normal controls were tested in self-imposed delay of gratification task. The results showed that ADHD children were impaired in delay of gratification compared with normal controls. The results also showed that there was no significant difference on delay strategies, but the score of ADHD was lower than normal controls on use of high level strategies. Experiment 2 investigated the delay ability of ADHD and normal controls using a variant version of DG. By changing the task difficulties, different motivational levels were induced in three delay situations (peas-sorting, card-sorting and fishing situations). The results showed that the delay time in fishing situation was longest, while it was shortest in waiting alone situation. There were significant differences on delay time in waiting alone situation, peas-sorting and card-sorting situations, but no difference in fishing situation, suggestting that the impairment in delay of gratification of ADHD is not purely caused by the deficient delay ability, but the deficient motivation.Experiment 3 tested the role of motivation in delay of gratification and the visual processing mechanism of ADHD using eyelinkII. The results showed that high level motivation induced by beautiful picture can help children to delay in waiting situation, indicating that poor performances of ADHD in some tasks may result from the deficient motivation.In general, these findings suggest that motivation plays a very important role in performance of ADHD. The poor performances of ADHD in some tasks, even in our daily life, may be due to the deficient motivation.