19 ADD children
and 16 controls
participated in the current study. All
participants were male. Ages ranged from
eight to fourteen years. There were no
significant differences in age between groups with the ADD group
reporting a
mean of 10.5 years (SD=1.74) and control group mean of 10.1 years
(SD=.89)
t(27.6)=.822, p=.418.
Of the 19 ADD
participants, 11 had
taken medication that day. There were no
significant differences between those on or off medication on any
measures.
Virtual Reality
Classroom
There was a
difference between the
two groups approaching significance on the number of commission errors
made
during the Vigil t(19.14)=1.97, p=.064. This
was not found on number of commission errors made in
the classroom
t(32)=1.43, p=.148.
Participants
were asked how much
they liked the Virtual Reality Classroom on a likert type scale from 1
to 7,
one being not at all and seven being a lot. The
mean score was 5.6 (SD=1.59). There were
no differences between groups t(34)=-9.67,
p=.340.
Eye-tracking
On and off task fixations in the presence or
absence of a
primer were the behaviors of interest. Two independent raters coded
each video
for these behaviors, and inter-rater reliability estimates based on the
percentage of agreement between the observers were calculated (A.
Grenga,
personal communication,
Significant
differences between the
two groups existed on the number of times participants went off task
when there
was a primer (“A”) on the board t(12.1)=2.23,p=.045
with ADD subjects going off task a mean of seven times (SD=6.07) and
control
subjects going off task an average of 2.23 times (SD=2.45). When there
was no primer
on the board there was not a significant difference between the number
of times
of times the ADD group (M=27.8, SD=20.57) and control (M=15.22,
SD=16.17) went
off-task, t(17)=1.47, p=1.60 (See
Figure 3)
Correlations
were run to determine
the relationship between off-task fixations and overall performance
scores in
the Virtual Reality Classroom. There was
a significant relationship between the number of off-task fixations
when A was
present and the overall score on the virtual reality classroom
r(18)=-.841,p=.000 and the Vigil r(18)=-.728,p=.000.
There was also a significant relationship
between the number of off-task fixations when no A was present and the
overall
score on the virtual reality classroom r(18)=-.657,p=.002 and the Vigil
r(18)=-.660, p=.002.
Correlations
were run to determine
the relationship between off-task eye-gaze fixations and head turn
variance. Head turn variance was broken
into 3 blocks of 2 minutes in length. For
participants with ADD there was a significant
relationship between
the number of off-task fixations when an A was present and head turn
variance
for block 2 r(5)=.885,p=.019, and block 3 r(5)=.926, p=.008, but not
for block
1 r(5)=.664,p=.150. There was also a
significant relationship between the number of off-task fixations when
an no A
was present and head turn variance for block 1 r(5)=.821,p=.045, block
2
r(5)=.956, p=.003, and block 3 r(5)=.957, p=.003. However,
no such relationships were found for
the control group.
Head turn variance
Four
extreme outliers were excluded. When the
means were computed without the outliers such outliers would have been
at least
six standard deviations above the mean and in some cases were as many
as 35
standards deviations above the mean.
With
the outliers excluded, there were no
significant differences between the ADD and control groups on head turn
block 1 t(25)=1.05, p=.303) block 2 t(25)=.645,
p=.525) or block 3 t(11.7)=1.42,p=.182 (See Figure 4).
Correlations
were run to determine the relationship between head turn variance and
overall
scores. Head turn variance was broken
into 3 blocks of 2 minutes in length. Significant
correlations were not found between the
Virtual Reality
Classroom and head turn block 1 r(25)=-.343,p=.079 but were found for
block 2
r(25)=-.700,p=.000 and block 3 r(25)=-.684,p=.000.
BASC
On the attention problem scale there was a
significant
difference between the ADD (M=96.05, S=5.17) and control (M=31.81,
S=23.9)
groups t(16.19)=10.55,p=.000. On
the hyperactivity subscale there was a
significant difference between the ADD (M=90.79, S=18.51) and control
(M=22.88,
S=18.22) groups t(33)=10.89,p=.000.
On the interpersonal problems subscale there
was a significant difference between the ADD (M=67.63, S=25.54) and
control
(M=38.75, S=30.38) groups t(33)=3.06,p=.004. On the adaptive skills subscale there was a
significant difference between the ADD (M=36.95, S=28.55) and control
(M=69.06,
S=27.13) groups t(33)=-3.39,p=.002
(See Figure 5).
Correlations
were run on to determine the relationship between BASC scores and
measures of
sustained attention. Correlations were
found between the Virtual Reality classroom and the BASC subscales of
attention
problems r(32)=-.513,p=.002, hyperactivity r(32)=-.483, p=.004, and
adaptive
skills r(34)=.448,p=.008. Correlations
were found between the Vigil and the BASC subscales of attention
problems r(32)=-.452,
p=.007, hyperactivity r(32)=-.408,p=.017 and adaptive skills
r(32)=3.51,p=.042. No correlations were
found between subscales
on the BASC and measures of head turn variance or eye-tracking for the
ADD
group.
