The Effect Of Cue Characteristics On Prospective Memory In Children With ADHD

Prospective memory is a special kind of long-term memory, it refers to theremembering of scheduled events or the execution of the behavior of the future. Thisstudy used classic "double tasks" paradigm and discussed the cue characteristics onprospective memory in children with ADHD. This study consists of two parts. The firstpart examined the effects of cue frequency on prospective memory in children withADHD by high, medium and low cues frequency. The results showed that, in the highfrequency condition, the prospective memory performance of ADHD group had nosignificant difference with the control group. In the intermediate frequency or lowfrequency condition, the prospective memory performance of ADHD group wassignificantly lower than those in the control group. The second part examined theimpact of cue relevance on prospective memory in ADHD children. We set up twoirrelevant cues and two relevant cues, respectively was irrelevant color, irrelevantgraphic, relevant semantic and relevant figure conditions. The results showed that cuerelevance had effect on the prospective memory of ADHD children. The prospectivememory performance of ADHD children was significantly better in irrelevantconditions than in relevant conditions.The main conclusion of this research was as follows:(1)The cue frequency affects the prospective memory of ADHD children. In highfrequency condition, ADHD children don't show deficit in prospective memory. Inmedium or low condition, ADHD children have deficit on prospective memory.(2)The cue relevance affects the prospective memory of ADHD children. Inirrelevant cue condition, ADHD children don't show deficit in prospective memory. Inrelevant cue condition, ADHD children have deficit on prospective memory.