LAUSR

Assessing behavioral change in psychiatric contexts requires retesting patients where, however, ecologically relevant tasks are rarely used. We employed the Ball Search Field Task (BSFT) to evaluate the performance of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) outpatients before and after administration of methylphenidate (MPH) and compared their performance with that of non-medicated ADHD outpatients and age-matched controls. The outpatient groups showed poorer performance at initial testing, improved performance at re-test although not to the level of the controls, and no clear effect of MPH treatment. The BSFT is thus sufficiently motivating and discriminating for the behavioral evaluation of treatments in psychiatric contexts.