Evaluating Reading and Metacognitive Deficits in Children and Adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

The reading achievement of children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has scarcely been explored in research conducted in the Spanish language and when it has, the results have been contradictory. The focus of the present research is to analyze participants' reading competency and metacognitive strategies as they carry out reading comprehension tasks. The sample was comprised of 187 Argentine schoolchildren aged 9 to 13 years old. 94 constituted the control group and the clinical group consisted of 93 schoolchildren diagnosed with ADHD. The metacognitive assessment was made up of two metacognitive tests, the Reading Awareness Scale (ESCOLA; acronym in Spanish) and a Spanish adaptation of Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), and one test of reading comprehension, the Evaluation of Reading Processes for Secondary Education Students (PROLEC-SE; acronym in Spanish). Students with ADHD had lower achievement on tests of reading comprehension compared to the control group. Nevertheless, our results suggest their difficulties did not stem from reading comprehension problems, but rather from alterations in their Executive Functions, because when subjects' reading comprehension was equalized, students with ADHD still exhibited a lower level of Metacognition, particularly when it came to planning.

Divergencias socioculturales en el uso del castellano: repercusiones en la comprensión del alumnado inmigrante en el sistema educativo español

“…En este ámbito, los estudios que han abordado la comprensión lectora se han centrado en analizar la influencia de las características de los alumnos (procesos psicológicos, habilidades lingüísticas, actitudes, conocimientos previos, estrategias metacognitivas…) y las relativas al texto (nivel de complejidad, estructura organizativa…) en esta competencia, tanto en diferentes niveles educativos como con escolares con diferentes características como discapacidad intelectual, sensorial o TDAH (Alvarado et al, 2011;Sacristán, 2006;Salvador, Gallego & Mieres, 2007;Santos & Campo, 2008). Sin embargo, en el contexto español no encontramos investigaciones que hayan abordado la repercusión de los elementos culturales del contexto en el proceso lector, desde la perspectiva de la lectura como un proceso complejo, interactivo e interpretativo, cuyo desarrollo está determinado por el contexto social y cultural (Sulzby & Teale Cit.…”

Metapsychological awareness of comprehension and epistemic vigilance of L2 communication in interlanguage pragmatic development

“…Consequently, learners may either believe some interpretations that accidentally achieve an optimal level of relevance or stop their processing of utterances before reaching intended interpretations 7 See Goh (1997:363) for a list of problems her informants had during listening, as well as their obstacles to successful listening comprehension and development. As in the case of reading, individuals suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) may experience comprehension problems when listening because of loss of self-control and self-regulation in executing tasks, difficulties to focus attention, susceptibility to distraction, attentional inflexibility, behavioural agitation, accelerated action and deterioration of certain automatisms, for instance (Alvarado et al, 2011). because something in their interlocutors' communicative behaviour accidentally appears irrelevant to them (Wilson, 1999). Ultimately, learners may end up making erroneous attributions of intentions and entertaining wrong, inaccurate or ill-founded beliefs (Wilson, 2011a(Wilson, , 2012, which may lead to an ubiquitous and pervasive phenomenon not exclusively pertaining to interaction between native and non-native speakers: misunderstanding (Thomas, 1983;Weigand, 1999;Yus Ramos, 1999a, 1999bZamborlin, 2007;Mustajoki, 2012).…”

La orquestación del proceso de escritura. Desarrollo y diseños de edad y de nivel = The orchestration of the writing process. Development and designs by age and level

“…Así, se aboga por la necesidad de desarrollo docente en la intervención/enseñanza de la escritura, tanto en alumnado con DEA como aquellos sin DEA pero inexpertos, de una formación específica en estrategias cognitivas escritoras específicas de planificación y revisión, que les ayude a simplificar las demandas cognitivas de la escritura (Torrance et al, 2007;Troia et al, 2012). Esto fomentará las funciones de autoconocimiento y autorregulación en escritura, que a su vez mejorará la motivación del alumnado, en general, situación generalizable a otras áreas y alumnado, como por ejemplo la lectura y alumnado con TDAH (Alvarado, Puente, Jiménez, & Arrebillaga, 2011). Un número considerable de investigadores han presentado pruebas sustanciales de la eficacia de la enseñanza de estrategias cognitivas para mejorar el rendimiento escritor (De Milliano et al, 2012;Graham, 2006;Troia, 2006).…”

“…This will promote the functions of self-knowledge and self-regulation in writing, which in turn will improve student's motivation in general. This situation can be extended to other areas and students, such as reading and students with ADHD (Alvarado, Puente, Jiménez, & Arrebillaga 2011). A number of researchers have presented substantial evidence of the effectiveness of cognitive strategy instruction to improve performance in writing (De Milliano et al, 2012, Graham, 2006, Troia, 2006 Although the conclusions obtained, and commented are diverse, there are still matters to be covered, in special in relation to the writing process and the way time is distributed, which, as previously discussed, may not have been fully addressed due to the characteristics of the online assessment tool used, maybe not entirely adapted to be applied to students with LD or with little writing experience.…”