Opposed attentional hemi-bias on a visuoconstructive task in children with severe hyperactivity versus severe inattention.

Twenty six empirical investigations have now established that children and adults with DSM-defined Attention deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) of the Hyperactive type (ADHD-H) or, more commonly, Combined Hyperactive/Inattentive types (ADHD-C) manifest a small but significant visual attentional bias to the right side (left subclinical neglect), consistently suggesting the existence of a subtle right hemisphere dysfunction or hemispheric imbalance in hyperactive people. Only one research team has investigated and compared the DSM-defined Inattentive subtype (ADHD-I) to the Hyperactive subtype (ADHD-H), confirming that line bisection is biased to the right in ADHD-H and discovering that it is biased to the left in ADHD-I. We aimed to test whether a similar crossed double dissociation would extend to Rey's Complex Figure Copy Task (RCF-CT), a simple visuospatial-constructive task.