Gender study of neuropsychological and neuromotor function in children with Tourette syndrome with and without attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Neuropsychological and neuromotor functions were compared between boys and girls with Tourette syndrome (TS only), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD only), Tourette syndrome with ADHD (TS+ADHD), and a comparison group, in an age (mean = 10 years) and IQ (Wechsler Full-Scale mean = 111) matched sample (n = 116). There were no timed-task neuromotor differences among the groups. Analyses of variance revealed a group x gender interaction for Letter Word Fluency and the Rapid Automatized Naming test. Girls with ADHD only were faster than boys on both tasks. When data for girls only were analyzed, girls with Tourette syndrome with ADHD had the greatest variability of reaction time on the Test of Variables of Attention, and were slowest on Letter Word Fluency. Girls with TS only were slower than girls in the other three groups on Letter Word Fluency. Poor Letter Word Fluency is explained as a linguistic executive dysfunction involving speed and efficiency of memory search in this bright group of girls with Tourette syndrome, not otherwise at risk for linguistic difficulties.