Marija Maric’s research while affiliated with University of Amsterdam and other places

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The captions of Figures 1 and 2 were swapped.

Objective: Executive functioning (EF) training-interventions aimed at ADHD-symptom reduction have limited results. However, EF-training might only be effective for children with relatively poor EF capacity. This randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study examined if pre-training EF capacity moderates the outcome of an EF-training intervention on measures of near- (EF performance) and far transfer (ADHD symptoms and parent-rated EF behavior) immediately after treatment and at three months follow-up. Methods: Sixty-one children with ADHD (aged 8-12) were randomized to either an EF-training condition where working memory (WM), inhibition and cognitive-flexibility (CF) were trained, or to a placebo condition. Single moderation models were used. Results: All significant moderation outcomes had small effect-sizes. After Bonferroni correction there were no significant moderators of treatment outcome. Conclusions: Children with poor EF capacity do not benefit more from EF training than from placebo training. Training only EF-impaired children will probably not improve outcomes of EF training-studies.