Effect of visual attention on postural control in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Quick side-to-side eye jumps can steady posture in kids with ADHD right away.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Bucci et al. (2014) watched how kids with ADHD stood still. They used a force plate to measure tiny body sway.
Some kids took methylphenidate. Some did not. All kids tried two eye tasks: quiet gaze or fast side-to-side jumps called saccades.
What they found
Kids off medicine swayed more than typical peers. When they did quick eye jumps, their sway dropped to normal levels.
Kids on medicine already swayed like typical peers. The eye task did not change their sway much.
How this fits with other research
Byiers et al. (2025) extends this idea. They show kids with both autism and ADHD have shakier eye jumps. Pia’s work says even shaky eyes can help posture if you make them move on purpose.
Brossard-Racine et al. (2012) is a predecessor. They saw motor skills improve after kids started medicine. Pia adds that vision tasks can give a quick posture boost even before medicine kicks in.
Coetzee et al. (2013) is a conceptual replication in children with DCD. A short school vision program fixed eye control for years. Pia shows one brief saccade task gives an instant posture fix in ADHD.
Why it matters
You can use quick eye jump games as a zero-cost warmup before seated work. Try “look left, look right” ten times. It may steady the body and cut chair tipping. Pair this with sensory checks from Mimouni-Bloch et al. (2018) if the child also shows sensory seeking.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We compared the effect of oculomotor tasks on postural sway in two groups of ADHD children with and without methylphenidate (MPH) treatment against a group of control age-matched children. Fourteen MPH-untreated ADHD children, fourteen MPH-treated ADHD children and a group of control children participated to the study. Eye movements were recorded using a video-oculography system and postural sway measured with a force platform simultaneously. Children performed fixation, pursuits, pro- and anti-saccades. We analyzed the number of saccades during fixation, the number of catch-up saccades during pursuits, the latency of pro- and anti-saccades; the occurrence of errors in the anti-saccade task and the surface and mean velocity of the center of pressure (CoP). During the postural task, the quality of fixation was significantly worse in both groups of ADHD children with respect to control children; in contrast, the number of catch-up saccades during pursuits, the latency of pro-/anti-saccades and the rate of errors in the anti-saccade task did not differ in the three groups of children. The surface of the CoP in MPH-treated children was similar to that of control children, while MPH-untreated children showed larger postural sway. When performing any saccades, the surface of the CoP improved with respect to fixation or pursuits tasks. This study provides evidence of poor postural control in ADHD children, probably due to cerebellar deficiencies. Our study is also the first to show an improvement on postural sway in ADHD children performing saccadic eye movements.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.03.029