This study looked at creative thinking in children in grades three to six. It compared 43 children with ADHD and 43 typically developing children, 86 in all. Each child with ADHD was matched to a peer on age, gender and school achievement or IQ rank. The children with ADHD came from 44 first recruited from 18 schools, 41 boys and 3 girls aged 8 to 12. One child who had taken medication before was left out, along with that child's match. Of the 43 children with ADHD, 22 were taking medication and 21 had never taken it.
On an open-ended creativity test using figures, the children with ADHD who had never been medicated scored higher than the other three groups. They came up with more ideas, more kinds of ideas and more original ideas. The other three groups did not differ much from one another. The authors called the differences small for the number and range of ideas and medium for originality. When intelligence was taken into account, the unmedicated group still scored higher than the medicated group on all three measures.
On two closed-ended tests, one on linking words and one on insight problems, the four groups did not differ.
The authors say the study cannot show that medication caused the difference. The sample was fairly small. Children could only be grouped by whether they took medication, so the effects of the medicines themselves were not identified. The children had also taken different intelligence tests at school, so only those who took the same type could be compared.
The numbers Stats and what the terms mean
The statistics behind the plain-language claims above.
- Ten, 2020: number of ideas across the four groups, F(3,82) = 6.040, p = .001, η2 = 0.181.
- Ten, 2020: average number of ideas, unmedicated M = 13.240 versus medicated M = 7.680, Typically Developing Group 1 M = 8.330 and Group 2 M = 8.270.
- Ten, 2020: range of ideas across the four groups, F(3,82) = 4.300, p = 0.007, η2 = 0.136.
- Ten, 2020: average range of ideas, unmedicated M = 8.330 versus medicated M = 4.950, Group 1 M = 6.330, Group 2 M = 6.050.
- Ten, 2020: originality across the four groups, F(3,82) = 14.188, p = .000, η2 = 0.342.
- Ten, 2020: average originality, unmedicated M = 14.900 versus medicated M = 7.230, Group 1 M = 6.810, Group 2 M = 5.640.
- Ten, 2020: number of ideas with intelligence controlled, unmedicated versus medicated adjusted means 12.762 versus 8.136, F(1,40) = 9.480, p = .004, partial eta squared 0.192.
- Ten, 2020: range of ideas with intelligence controlled, adjusted means 8.088 versus 5.189, F(1,40) = 11.507, p = .000, partial eta squared 0.365.
- Ten, 2020: originality with intelligence controlled, adjusted means 14.569 versus 7.548, F(1,40) = 11.548, p = .000.
- Ten, 2020: linking words across the four groups, F(3,82) = 2.045, p = .114, η2 = 0.070.
- Ten, 2020: insight problems across the four groups, F(3,82) = 0.007, p = .999, η2 = 0.002. What the terms mean:
- M is the average score for a group.
- F compares how far apart the group averages are against how much scores vary within groups.
- p is how likely a gap this size would be if there were no real difference; smaller means less likely to be chance.
- η2 is the share of the spread in scores linked to group membership; the authors called 0.181 and 0.136 small and 0.342 medium.
- partial eta squared is the same kind of share, measured after intelligence is taken into account.
Source: Ten W, Tseng C, Chiang Y, et al.. Creativity in children with ADHD: Effects of medication and comparisons with normal peers. Psychiatry Research (2020). doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2019.112680