Children With ADHD

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the journal article, "Difficulties in Comprehending Causal Relations Among Children With ADHD: The Role of Cognitive Engagement," from the "Journal of Abnormal Psychology". The paper claims that this article is a significant report on the condition of ADHD in children. The article opens by acknowledging the significant academic difficulties that are experienced by students with ADHD, which are well-documented in many studies. The paper explains that there has been a significant lack of research documenting the specific ways in which the comprehension and memory processes for complex, interconnected information differ between ADHD and normal children. The paper presents one of the effective methods that may be used to research these comprehension and memory processes: televised stories.

From the Paper:

"In order to measure visual attention levels, researchers have had both ADHD and non-ADHD children view one television program in a room with no toys, and another television program in a room with toys. With no toys in the room, both ADHD and non-ADHD children averaged over 90% visual attention to the program. With toys in the room, ADHD children had a far larger drop in the amount of visual attention paid to the program than the non-ADHD children. There was no difference in the understanding of factual events between the groups of children. The ADHD group did have a larger drop in their understanding of causal relations compared to non-ADHD children when toys distracted them from the program. The question, then, is why the ADHD children are able to maintain this understanding of factual events, but not of the causal relations. Possible causes proposed include that children with ADHD shift visual attention more frequently which disrupts the continuity of the story processing, or that ADHD children look at the television for shorter spans of time with toys present which would also impair ability to construct the story."

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