Date of Award

8-2026

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

School

Psychology

Committee Chair

Stephanie Smith

Committee Chair School

Psychology

Committee Member 2

Freddie Pastrana-Rivera

Committee Member 2 School

Psychology

Committee Member 3

Erik Willcutt

Abstract

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with less developed working memory (WM) processes, theorized to be a core contributing factor in the development of ADHD and a predictor of ADHD symptom severity (Alderson et al., 2013; Rapport et al., 2008). Objective measures inclusive of working memory tasks, when used in conjunction with self-report measures, have been previously shown to increase the accuracy of diagnosing ADHD (Marshal et al., 2021. However, given that WM is typically assessed by a trained clinician, it is unclear how accurate and comparable online administration of adapted WM tasks are to their in-person counterparts. This study aimed to: (1) compare online versus in-lab administration of a computerized WM task, (2) compare both methods to a paper-and-pencil version of the same WM task administered by a trained clinician, and (3) determine if performance on the WM task predicts ADHD symptom counts. Results indicated that performance on a computerized WM task were statistically equivalent across remote and in-person administration. However, scores on the clinician-administered version were significantly lower than scores on both versions of the computerized WM tasks and these scores did not predict ADHD symptom counts. These findings suggest that computerized WM tasks are not interchangeable with traditional clinician-administered versions, but scores from computerized WM tasks may be reliable across administration formats. As telehealth diagnostic assessments expand, it is recommended that these modality differences be recognized while comprehensive, multi-measure evaluations are prioritized rather than relying on isolated cognitive metrics when assessing for ADHD in adults.

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