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Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.
"The development of selective attention in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder".
"Selective attention is the process of selecting what is relevant to current behavior from our environment while ignoring that that is not." In this study there were three groups of children; one without ADHD, one with ADHD not medicated, and one with ADHD medicated. The group of children with ADHD that were medicated was given Methylphenidate/MPH also known as Ritalin. This study asked three questions. "(1) Do the selective attention abilities of children with ADHD change with age? (2) How does the nature of the distracting stimulus affect the selective attention performance of children with ADHD? (3) Does MPH influence the performance of children with ADHD on selective attention tasks?" For the purpose of this review and this discussion, the main focus will be on the latter question. There were two types of distracters present, visual and auditory; it was shown that more meaningful distracters presented more of a difficulty. One of the conclusions of the study was, "All children experience distraction in the distracters conditions, relative to reaction time base line. Children with ADHD (off MPH) however were disrupted more by the presence of distracters then were the control children. This overall effect can be interpreted as evidences of a selective attention deficit with ADHD." The children with ADHD that were medicated, MPH may have been responsible for improving their ability to selectively attend to targets or selectively inhibit distracters. .
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
"Stimulant Medication".
More then 60years ago it was discovered that psycho stimulants reduced disruptive symptoms in children with ADHD. Over 20 years ago 4 stimulants came on to the market and are still the leading stimulants sold today those are, Methylphenidate (most common one is Ritalin), Adderall, Dexedrine, Cylert.