Department of Child Welfare Services, School of Social Welfare, Kyushu University of Health and Welfare
Abstract
Developmental disabilities, including learning difficulties (LD), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), are syndromes that have unclear etiologies and are diagnosed on the basis of their clinical features. Developmental disabilities show high rates of comorbidity, resulting in similar clinical pictures in many cases. However, these similar clinical pictures may be based on different underlying factors that can be determined by microscopic observation or tests. In this study, differential assessments that were based on research using laboratory-based cognitive tasks were proposed for differentiating between the underlying factors that contribute to similar clinical pictures of developmental disabilities. These factors, which should be treated using a different therapeutic approach, include the following: 1) error monitoring (the primary deficit typically observed in LD) and mental effort (typically observed in ADHD) with respect to careless mistakes; 2) response decision (typically observed in ADHD) and motor inhibition (typically observed in oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder) with respect to behavioural inhibition and 3) preattentive processing (typically observed in LD) and weak central coherence (typically observed in ASD) with respect to global perception. These differential assessments may provide detailed and individualized understanding and support to individuals with developmental disabilities and critical information for the differential diagnosis of developmental disabilities