Exploring the self-reference effect and its educational applications in typically developing children and children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Introduction: It has been discovered that items, events, or actions which are encoded self-referentially result in a memory advantage. This has been termed the ‘self-reference effect’. There is a lack of research concerning self-referential processes within typically developing children, and children diagnosed with ADHD as well as the educational applications of the self-reference effect. Objectives: Experiment 1 measured evaluative and physical self-referential processes within typically developing children and the efficacy of self-referencing methods within an educational task. Experiment 2 replicated the study and compared performance between children with ADHD and a matched control sample. Results: In Experiment 1, children displayed a source memory advantage for self-related items, and better recall for self-performed actions. Within the educational task, there was a ceiling effect and therefore no attention and memory advantage was observed following self- encoding. Within Experiment 2, typically-developing and ADHD groups showed overall better memory for actions performed by the self. Children with ADHD showed no difference in self and other item memory in the evaluative self-referencing task. Among both groups within the educational task, a ceiling effect was observed. Conclusion: The study is the first to explore and provide potential evidence of physical self-referential biases within ADHD children, adding to our basic understanding of the self-construct within the clinical group. Children with ADHD showed a similar physical but not cognitive self-reference effect as typically developing children, suggesting that reduced attentional capacity may impact on the effects of the self. Implications and ideas for further research are discussed.
Self, Self-referencing, ADHD, Education, Attention, Memory
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