Effect of financial and non-financial reward and punishment for inhibitory control in boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Boys with ADHD react to punishment differently than peers—non-financial penalties may not improve inhibitory control and effects vary with age.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers tested 60 boys . Half had ADHD. Half were typical.
Each boy played a computer stop-signal game. Wrong answers brought either money loss or a loud buzzer.
The team tracked how fast each child stopped their response after each penalty.
What they found
Typical boys improved only when they lost money. The buzzer did nothing.
Boys with ADHD improved after both penalties, but only if they were older.
Younger ADHD boys got worse after the buzzer. Money still helped them.
How this fits with other research
Rasing et al. (1992) showed that quick teacher reprimands can match stimulant pills for ADHD. Miyasaka et al. (2023) adds that the type of penalty matters.
Webb et al. (1999) found brief time-out cut disruptive behavior to zero. The new study says non-financial penalties like buzzers may backfire for younger ADHD kids.
Mascheretti et al. (2018) found 20-minute movement breaks boost ADHD cognition. Together, these papers suggest pairing mild financial loss with activity breaks for best results.
Ferrier et al. (2025) reports the field is moving away from harsh punishment. Miyasaka et al. (2023) supports this by showing loud buzzers can harm younger ADHD boys.
Why it matters
If you use response-cost with ADHD clients, test money loss first. Skip loud noises for kids under 11. Track age and adjust. This small shift can keep penalty procedures both effective and kind.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The development of inhibitory processes is disturbed in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); however, little is known about the effect of negative punishment for inhibitory performance in this population. AIMS: We investigated differences in the effects of reward and punishment, developmental changes, and response inhibition between children with and without ADHD, using financial (F-FB) and non-financial (NF-FB) feedback. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We conducted financial and non-financial go/no-go tasks under reward and punishment conditions with 21 boys with ADHD and 21 healthy controls (HCs), in Japan. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: We found group-related significant interactions between group, feedback type, and punishment (p = .013), and group, feedback type, and age (p = .009). There were significant differences in inhibitory error under F-FB only in HCs between the punishment-absent and punishment-present conditions (p = .003). In the ADHD group, age-dependent effects were found for both feedback types (ps < .01), but only F-FB effects were found in HCs (p = .008). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Punishment for inhibitory control had different effects on the ADHD and HC groups. Children with ADHD respond differently to external motivation than HCs, leading to difficulties with peers or confusion among teachers and caregivers.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2023 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104438