Effort Allocation in Children With ADHD: Abnormal Decision-Making or Poor Execution?

OBJECTIVE: Effort allocation is a multi-faceted process driving both the decision to choose a high effort-high reward alternative over a low effort-low reward alternative, and the execution of this decision by recruiting sufficient effort. The objectives of our study were to examine whether children with ADHD would (a) show different reward-effort cost trade-off, and (b) have difficulty executing their decision.

METHOD: 50 children, aged 9 to 15, with and without ADHD, had to choose between high effort-high reward and low effort-low reward alternatives using a handheld dynamometer and to execute their choice.

RESULTS: Children with ADHD and controls made similar number of high-effort choices (p = .806). However, children with ADHD executed their high-effort choices less frequently compared with controls (p = .029).

CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that children with ADHD are not characterized by different effort-reward trade-off but rather by difficulties in recruiting effort for their preferences implementation.