Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MA in Psychology

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Dana Chesney

Second Advisor

Ester Navarro

Abstract

Imagine having a disorder where you are predisposed to score a year below average on examinations for your age (Lawrence et al., 2020). This is the frustrating reality for individuals with ADHD. This life-long neurodevelopmental disorder impacts people's functioning in their everyday lives, including standardized task performance. However, it is possible that individuals with ADHD may actually present advantages in tasks that require the ability to release taxing cognitive processes, such as proactive cognitive control. This question has not been examined before and may shed light on the interpretation of ADHD individuals’ performance on standardized tests and tasks. To this end, the study examined performance of ADHD individuals and controls on novel and practiced cognitive tasks 24 English-speaking undergraduate and graduate students at St. John’s University completed the Letter-Number Sequencing test (WAIS-III), and the Task Switching (DMCC) task. The thought being here that individuals with ADHD will perform better on the DMCC task than individuals without ADHD given their ability to stay on act based on cues is stronger. Two 2 x 2 factorial analyses were conducted. The findings showed no statistically significant results; future research implications and limitations are discussed.

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