Performance of children and adolescents with PTSD on the Stroop colour-naming task

Background. Investigators have used various experimental paradigms such as the Stroop colour naming test to study how adults with different emotional disorders process emotional information. However, to date, little research has been carried out on younger subjects. Method. In the current experiment, children and adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and control subjects aged 9-17 years, participated in a modified Stroop colour naming task. Results. The results indicated that the children and adolescents with PTSD showed increased Stroop interference for trauma-related material relative to neutral words and to the performance of the controls. Conclusions. These findings indicate that attentional bias to trauma-congruent information is a function of PTSD in young age groups. The results are discussed with respect to the literature on information processing in PTSD.