Brief report Verbal memory and aspects of attentional control in children and adolescents with anxiety disorders or depressive disorders Thomas Gu ¨nther a, * , K. Holtkamp a , J. Jolles b , B. Herpertz-Dahlmann a , K. Konrad a a Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Hospital of Aachen, Neuenhofer Weg 21, D-52074 Aachen, Germany b Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, Maastricht Brain and Behaviour Institute, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands Received 21 July 2003; received in revised form 4 November 2003; accepted 4 November 2003 Abstract Background: The aim was to examine basic performance on attention and memory tasks in treatment-naı ¨ve children and adolescents with anxiety disorder or depressive disorder and in healthy subjects under drug-free conditions. Methods: Basic neurocognitive performance on attention and verbal memory tasks was examined in children and adolescents with emotional disorders, between 6 and 17 years of age. A total of 34 children with an anxiety disorder, 31 children with a depressive disorder, and 33 healthy controls were assessed with a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery. All children were treatment-naı ¨ve at the time of testing. Five different computerised attention tasks and the Rey Auditory–Verbal Learning Test were administered. Results: A significant effect of diagnosis was found for verbal memory but not for attention. Limitations: The large age range and inclusion of different diagnoses resulted in rather inhomogeneous groups. Conclusion: The present study provided evidence for an undisturbed attentional performance in both patient groups and a dissociation in memory functioning between anxious and depressed children. Memory impairment was found to be specifically associated with childhood depression. D 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Neuropsychology; Depression; Anxiety; Children; Memory; Attention 1. Introduction Recently it has been suggested that emotional disorders may be associated with impairments in neurocognitive functioning (Porter et al., 2003). This is supported by teacher and parent reports stating that children with anxiety disorder or de- pression suffer from problems in concentration and memory and show increased school dysfunction (Benjamin et al., 1990). Additionally, anxious chil- dren complain of frequent and intensive intrusive thoughts during cognitive tasks in self-report ques- tionnaires (Kendall and Chansky, 1991). However, until now, it remains unclear whether neurocogni- tive abilities are disturbed when objective measures of attention and memory are applied and, if so, which cognitive impairments are specifically asso- ciated with either anxiety disorders or depression in childhood. This might be an important point for our understanding of the underlying cognitive impair- ment, as well as for the development and monitor- 0165-0327/$ - see front matter D 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2003.11.004 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +49-241-808-8753; fax: +49-241- 808-2544. E-mail address: thomas.guenther2@post.rwth-aachen.de (T. Gu ¨nther). www.elsevier.com/locate/jad Journal of Affective Disorders 82 (2004) 265 – 269