Objective: Research assessing the social skills of children with ADHD has predominantly relied upon North American samples. In addition, most existing work has been conducted using methodology that fails to use a controlled peer stimulus; such methods may be more vulnerable to cultural influence. Method: We examined the social skills of 52 Spanish children (ages 8-12) with and without ADHD using a controlled Chat Room Task, which simulates a virtual social environment where peers’ responses are held constant, so that participants’ social skills may be assessed. Results: After statistical control of typing and reading comprehension skills, Spanish children with ADHD gave fewer prosocial comments and had greater difficulty remembering central details from the conversation between the peers, relative to comparison children. Conclusion: The virtual Chat Room Task may be useful to assess social skills deficits using a controlled paradigm, resulting in the identification of common social deficiencies cross-culturally.
This study analyzes the self-perceptions of social competence in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It compares two groups of participants, children with ADHD ( N = 20) and children without ADHD ( N = 20) ages between 8 and 12 years old. Sociometric questionnaires were completed by two groups of participants and 707 peers, as well as a questionnaire that evaluates children’s behavior from parents’ and teachers’ perspectives. Results indicate that children with ADHD correctly perceive enmity, but incorrectly perceive friendship. Children with ADHD have low rates of positive reciprocity and qualities that indicate friendship differs considerably from the children without ADHD. The children with ADHD have a different profile of social self-perception than children without ADHD, especially regarding recognizing friendship. The results contribute to the understanding of perceptions of elements of peer relationship and friendships with strong ecological validity. This small scale study provides a proof of concept for improving ecological validity in the methods of evaluating social skills and social emotion learning programming for children with ADHD.
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