Table 1.
Previous studies that compare social cognition skills in children and adolescents with ADHD and high-functioning ASD (N = 11).
| References | Participant: (N) | Total IQ | Theory of mind tasks | Results | Conclusions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adachi et al., 2004 | 29 ADHD MA = 9.6 | 96.7 | Box of Marbles' task | ADHD: Success on ToM tasks = 84.6%. | Both ADHD and ASD show impairments in metaphor comprehension. ADHD: Adequate comprehension of sarcastic situations. ASD: Specific incapacity to understand sarcasm |
| 54 ASD MA = 9.8 | 96.1 | Metaphoric and Sarcastic | ASD: Success on ToM task = 69.2% | ||
| 199 TD MA = 10.0 | – | Scenario test | Relationship between ToM and sarcasm | ||
| Baribeau et al., 2015 | 71 ADHD MA = 9.3 | 100.6 | Reading the mind in the eyes | Differences between ASD and ADHD in RMET Serious impairment in ASD and medium in ADHD Both groups performed worse on RMET items with a positive valence | ADHD presented a moderate alteration in social information processing, between ASD and TD. In ASD, social impairment is central. Social communication deficits and H/I traits are associated with impaired social perception abilities |
| 118 ASD MA = 11.6 | 91.4 | Test child version (RMET) | |||
| 42 ODD MA = 13.7 | 108.8 | Social communication | |||
| 34 TD MA = 12.5 | 113.1 | Questionnaire (SWAN) | |||
| Bühler et al., 2011 | 84 ADHD MA = 9.7 | 97.9 | Facial emotion matching | Differences in inhibitory control (ADHD < ASD) and in the ToM performance among younger (ASD < ADHD) but not older children | Age modulates the ToM deficits in the clinical groups. Children with ASD lack ToM prerequisites and show impairments very early on, whereas children with ADHD display difficulties over the course of their development |
| 86 ASD MA = 10.8 | 105.4 | Social attribution task | |||
| 52 ASD+ADHD MA = 10.1 | 99.0 | Battery for attention | |||
| Inhibition Go/NoGo | |||||
| Buitelaar et al., 1999 | 20 PC (9 ADHD MA = 12.3) | 99.8 | 6 First-order ToM tasks | The two ASD groups are not distinguished on socio-cognitive performance, nor are they differentiated from the ADHD group. Other disorders showed no differences from TD | Impairments in mentalizing and emotion recognition skills are not specific to autism disorder. Individuals with ASD hardly differ from other disorders (such as ADHD) on their social comprehension in testing situations |
| 20 ASD MA = 12.5 | 102.1 | 4 Second-order ToM tasks | |||
| 20 PDD MA = 10.1 | 98.7 | Emotion recognition tasks | |||
| 20 TD MA = 10.5 | – | ||||
| Demopoulos et al., 2013 | 436 ADHD MA = 10.3 | 98.2 | Social solving problems | ADHD and ASD performance was inferior to TD performance on all the measures, although the ASD group was worse than the ADHD | Children with ADHD display similar socio-cognitive impairments to those of children with ASD, although with less severity. The differences are more quantitative than qualitative |
| 137 ASD MA = 10.5 | 88.3 | Affect recognition | |||
| Social judgment test | |||||
| Demurie et al., 2011 | 13 ADHD MA = 13.7 | 102.9 | Interpersonal reactivity index | ASD presented impairments in perspective taking abilities. ADHD adolescents' performance was between ASD and TD adolescents | ToM problems are not specific to ASD. On all the measures, ASD < ADHD < TD, which would indicate a certain symptomatological continuum |
| 13 ASD MA = 14.3 | 101.5 | Reading the mind in the eyes | |||
| 18 TD MA = 13.8 | Averege | Empathic accuracy task | |||
| Downs and Smith, 2004 | 16 ADHD/ODD MA = 8.3 | 103.3 | Cooperative Behavior (CB):Prisoner's dilemma test | ASD and TD outperformed ADHD/ODD on CB and EU. | ADHD/ODD group showed more socio-emotional and behavioral impairments than the ASD group. High-functioning ASD can develop cooperation and ToM, but experience deficits in identifying emotions and appropriate behaviors. |
| 10 ASD MA = 7.1 | 106.6 | Emotional understanding-EU | ASD showed worse emotion recognition and more active/odd behavior | ||
| 10 TD MA = 7.7 | 108.9 | Behavioral development | |||
| Dyck et al., 2001 | 35 ADHD | – | 4 emotion recognition scales (Empathic abilities, EA) | Autism groups presented alterations in ToM and empathic abilities | Deficits in empathic capacity are not specific to the autism spectrum. Empathy is not independent from intelligence, so that both dimensions are necessary to discriminate ASD from other disorders |
| 48 ASD | ToM. Strange stories test | ADHD group showed deficits in empathy, but not in ToM | |||
| 48 Other disorders | Wechsler intelligence scale | ||||
| 36 TD MA = 12.09 | |||||
| Hutchins et al., 2016 | 29 ADHD MA = 9 | Average IQ range | 9 Measures of explicit ToM | ASD: Worse performance than children with ADHD and TD on all measures | Complexity in assessment is critical to distinguish the groups. ADHD fail to apply ToM abilities in the real world. ASD presented global ToM difficulties that seem attributable to a deeper meta-representational deficit |
| 67 ASD MA = 9.7 | |||||
| 49 TD MA = 8.8 | TOMI Inventory (measure of applied ToM competence) | ADHD: Equal performance to TD on explicit ToM, but lower on TOMI | |||
| Sinzig et al., 2008 | 30 ADHD MA = 12.7 | 100 | Facial affect recognition (Frankfurt Test). Inhibition Attention, Set-Shifting | ADHD groups performed significantly worse than the control group on Affect Recognition | The facial affect recognition ability is reduced in children suffering from ADHD symptoms, both in autistic and pure ADHD children |
| 21 ASD+ADHD | 102 | ||||
| 19 ASD MA = 12.6 | 111 | ||||
| 29 TD MA = 12.8 | 109 | ||||
| Yang et al., 2009 | 26 ADHD MA = 8.2 | 109.9 | ToM 1. Appearance-reality | Children with ASD performed worse than ADHD and TD children on ToM tasks | Significant relationship between ToM and inhibitory control after partialling out IQ. ToM deficit with intact EF is unlikely |
| 20 ASD MA = 8.0 | 96.6 | ToM 2. Unexpected location | ADHD performed similarly to the TD group | ||
| 30 TD MA = 8.1 | 118.2 | EF: Stroop, Wisconsin Test |
MA, Mean age; ADHD, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; ASD, Autism spectrum disorder; TD, Typical development; ODD, Oppositional defiant disorder; PDD, Pervasive developmental disorder; PC, Psychiatric control group;
EF, Executive functions.