A preliminary evaluation of the utility of sluggish cognitive tempo symptoms in predicting behavioral treatment response in children with behavioral difficulties
Open accessAbstract
Interest in symptoms of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) has led to a number of studies evaluating how these symptoms respond to treatment commonly utilized in youths with symptoms of ADHD. No study to date, however, has examined the extent to which symptoms of SCT predict behavioral treatment response in youths across multiple domains of functioning. The current preliminary investigation integrates a number of methodological (e.g., direct observations) and analytic (e.g., Poisson regression) refinements to evaluate the extent to which symptoms of SCT predict treatment responses across multiple domains including behavioral (e.g., interruptions, rule violations), social (e.g., social skills, negative verbalizations), and severe behavioral difficulties (e.g., intentional aggression) above and beyond other demographic characteristics (e.g., symptom severity, Full Scale Intelligence Quotient [FSIQ]). A relatively small sample of 37 children, aged six to 12 years ( M = 8.03, SD = 1.83, 35 males: 2 females) attending an eight week multi-component intensive behavioral treatment program for youths with behavioral difficulties participated in the current study. Baseline parental perceptions of SCT were collected prior to the initiation of treatment. Results from this preliminary investigation revealed that pre-treatment SCT symptoms only predicted a less robust treatment response to time out which was associated also with parent’s perceptions of underlying working memory problems. Results revealed also that pre-treatment SCT symptoms failed to predict paraprofessional counselor’s and teacher’s improvement ratings of both rule following and social skills following treatment. Notably, other potential predictors (e.g., symptom severity, FSIQ) also largely failed to predict behavioral treatment response.
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Among adults with ADHD, SCT symptoms improved with lisdexamfetamine, with moderately large effect sizes largely independent of changes in ADHD symptoms.
“Among adults with ADHD, SCT symptoms improved with lisdexamfetamine, with moderately large effect sizes that are largely independent of changes in ADHD symptoms.153”
From Report of a Work Group on Sluggish Cognitive Tempo: Key Research Directions and a Consensus Change in Terminology to Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome (2023) · cites this paper as [153]
The Abstract describes an eight-week behavioral treatment study in children aged 6–12. The Introduction mentions mixed findings on pharmacological treatment and SCT, but neither passage addresses lisdexamfetamine in adults, effect sizes, or whether SCT changes were independent of ADHD symptom changes. Searches for those terms found no passage supporting the claim. (LLM, conf=0.74)
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Becker, S. P., Willcutt, E. G., Leopold, D. R., Fredrick, J. W., Smith, Z. R., Jacobson, L. A., Burns, G. L., Mayes, S. D., Waschbusch, D. A., Froehlich, T. E., et al. (2023) · Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2022.07.821 · Cited by 175 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Little, K., Raiker, J., Coxe, S., Campez, M., Jusko, M., Smith, J., Gnagy, E., Greiner, A., Villodas, M., Coles, E., & Pelham, W. E.
- Affiliations
- Florida International University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Raiker, Joseph
- ORCID
- Venue
- Psychological Reports
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-09-13
- Volume
- 124
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 2063-2091
- ISSN
- 0033-2941 (ISSN-L)
- 1558-691X
- PMC
- PMC12503231
- OpenAlex
- W3086011701
- Cited by
- 3
- References
- 56
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 0.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Reports (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- The Children's Trust (#7561)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Behavioral and Psychological Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
- Keywords
- sluggish cognitive tempo, child behavior problems, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, time-out, rule-following, social skills, parental attitudes, predictors of treatment outcome
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity, Child, Cognition, Cognition Disorders, Female, Humans, Male, Memory, Short-Term, Parents
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