Abikoff, H., Courney, M. E., Szeibel, P. J., & Koplewicz, H. S. (1996). The effects of auditory stimulation on the arithmetic performance of children with ADHD and non-disabled children . Journal of Learning Disabilities , 29 (3), 238–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/002221949602900302

Each student was tested over two days with testing during the second day under three auditory stimulation conditions: 10 minutes of music, 10 minutes of background speech, 10 minutes of silence.

Participants included 40 boys, 20 with ADHD and 20 without ADHD (average age of 9-9). Six of the boys with ADHD were receiving Ritalin. Many had a concurrent diagnosis: 4 Conduct Disorder, 9 Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), 7 Specific Developmental Disorder (SDD), 4 both ODD and SDD. Nine of the children with ADHD were Caucasian, 8 African American, and 3 Hispanic. In the group of students without disabilities, 14 were Caucasian, 4 were African American, and 2 were Asian.

Day One: WRAT-R Arithmetic subtest, WISC-R Vocabulary subtest, Arithmetic Screening Test (AST) were used to determine the child's math skill level.
Day Two: Three different 60-problem tests at the child's level were administered. Three scores were generated for each subject: Number of math examples attempted, Number of correct answers, Accuracy (the number of examples answered divided by the number attempted).

The arithmetic performance of the children with ADHD benefited from music when the music condition was presented first. The children without disabilities performed similarly under the three auditory conditions.