The Role of Surface Text Processing in Centrality Deficit and Poor Text Comprehension of Adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Think‐Aloud Study

Abstract

The present study employed a think‐aloud method to explore the origin of centrality deficit (i.e., poor recall of central ideas) in individuals with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Moreover, utilizing the diverse think‐aloud responses, we examined the overall quality of text processing employed by individuals with ADHD during reading, in order to shed more light on text‐level deficiencies underlying their poor comprehension after reading. To address these goals, adolescents with and without ADHD were asked to state aloud whatever comes to their minds during the reading of two expository texts. After reading, the participants freely recalled text ideas and answered multiple‐choice questions on the texts. Compared to controls, participants with ADHD generated fewer responses that reflect deep, efficient text processing, and reinstated fewer prior text ideas, particularly central ones, during reading. Moreover, the proportions of deep processing responses positively associated with participants’ performance on recall and comprehension tasks. These findings suggest that individuals with ADHD exhibit poor text comprehension and memory, particularly of central ideas, because they construct a low‐quality, less‐connected text representation during reading, and produce fewer, less‐elaborated retrieval cues for subsequent tasks after reading.

The origin of centrality deficit in text memory and comprehension by poor comprehenders: a think-aloud study

“…The results indicated that PC recalled fewer ideas than GC, both central and peripheral ones, whereas this reduction was significantly greater in recalling central ideas. There are previous studies that support the presence of centrality deficit based on this pattern of results (Curran et al, 1996;Drum, 1985;Eamon, 1978;Yeari & Lavie, 2020). However, traditionally, researchers have expected to observe a comparable recall of peripheral ideas by disabled and control groups to establish firm conclusions on the presence of centrality deficit.…”

The Task Matters: A Scoping Review on Reading Comprehension Abilities in ADHD

“…Even after controlling for background variables that may impact reading comprehension, such as age, socioeconomic status, education level, parents’ book reading, and number of books at home, there was still a significant difference between the groups in reading comprehension. Similarly, Yeari and Lavie (2021) found that after controlling for individual differences in decoding, 16-year-old (on average; no age range reported) adolescents with ADHD were less accurate and slower than TD controls at answering integrative and inferential multiple-choice questions. Yeari et al (2017) also found evidence to suggest that 15-year-old (on average; no age range reported) adolescents with ADHD have difficulties generating predictive and explanatory inferences and in retaining relevant information about a text.…”

“…Studies that have used this method to measure reading comprehension in ADHD have produced somewhat mixed findings. Several studies have provided evidence to suggest that individuals with ADHD struggle to accurately answer comprehension questions (Alloway et al, 2010; Alvarado et al, 2011; Asberg et al, 2010; Ben-Yehudah & Brann, 2019; Cain & Bignell, 2014; Friedman et al, 2017; Ghelani et al, 2004; Kofler et al, 2019; Lewandowski et al, 2015; Madjar et al, 2020; Samuelsson et al, 2004; Stern & Shalev, 2013; Yeari & Lavie, 2021; Yeari et al, 2017) while a fewer number of studies found performance to be comparable to TD controls (Bental & Tirosh, 2007; Gremillion & Martel, 2012; Lewandowski et al, 2013; Li et al, 2009; Miller et al, 2013, 2015; Miranda et al, 2006; Pagirsky et al, 2017; Semrud-Clikeman et al, 2000). To complicate things further, one study reported that participants with ADHD perform worse than TD controls on literal, but not inferential comprehension questions (Miranda et al, 2017).…”

“…These articles were screened in the same manner as described above and no discrepancies occurred between the two reviewers (KP and CM) during the screening process. During the title and abstract screening stage, 13 articles were excluded, leaving one article that met the inclusion criteria for the present review (Yeari & Lavie, 2021). The reference list from this article was searched and no relevant articles were identified.…”

“…In contrast, the present scoping review aims to characterize the reading comprehension abilities and challenges in individuals with ADHD across ages. After the inclusion of the Yeari and Lavie (2021) paper, 29 articles met the inclusion criteria for the review.…”