Phonological processing in individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Objetivo analisar e descrever o desempenho das habilidades dos componentes do processamento fonológico nos sujeitos com Transtorno do Déficit de Atenção e Hiperatividade (TDA/H). Métodos trata-se de estudo descritivo analítico dos dados de avaliação das habilidades do processamento fonológico de 45 sujeitos, com idade entre 7 e 16 anos, com diagnóstico multiprofissional de TDA/H. Os dados foram obtidos pela análise dos prontuários dos sujeitos avaliados pelo Laboratório de Estudo dos Transtornos de Aprendizagem (LETRA) do Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), nos anos de 2008 a 2011. Os resultados analisados incluem a prova de Consciência Fonológica proposta pela bateria de testes BELEC, prova de Nomeação Seriada Rápida (RAN) e Memória Auditiva. Duas variáveis foram consideradas nesta análise: idade e presença ou não de comorbidades associadas. O teste aplicado para caracterização da amostra foi o não paramétrico de Mann Whitney. Resultados os grupos tendem a se diferenciarem ao se analisar a variável idade, nas provas de consciência fonológica e RAN. Quando a variável comorbidade foi analisada, a consciência fonológica é a mais influenciada pela presença de comorbidades. Na habilidade de memória fonológica, sob a mesma ótica, não houve diferenças entre os grupos. Conclusão o maior déficit do processamento fonológico foi observado na habilidade de consciência fonológica, segundo as variáveis idade e comorbidade, seguido pela habilidade de acesso ao léxico, na variável idade. Já para a memória de trabalho não houve significância.Purpose to analyze e to describe the skills’ performance of the phonological processing components in subjects with Attention Deficit - Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Methods it is a descriptive analytical study of the evaluation data of the phonological processing skills of 45 subjects, with ages between 7 and 16 years, with a multiprofessional diagnosis of ADHD. All data was obtained from the medical records of the subjects evaluated by the Laboratório de Estudo dos Transtornos de Aprendizagem (LETRA) of Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), between the years of 2008 and 2011. The analyzed results include the Phonological Awareness test, proposed by the battery of tests BELEC, the Rapid Serial Naming (RAN) test and Auditory Memory test. Two variables were considered in this analysis: the age and the presence or absence of associated comorbidities. The test used to the sample characterization was the nonparametric of Mann Whitney. Results groups tend to differentiate themselves when the age variable is analyzed, on the Phonological Awareness tests and RAN. When the comorbidity variable was analyzed, the Phonological Awareness was more influenced by the presence of comorbidities. On the Auditory Memory skills, by the same light, there were no differences between the groups. Conclusion the largest deficit in phonological processing was observed in phonological awareness skills, according to the age and comorbidity variables, followed by the lexicon’s access skills, according to the age variable. About the Working Memory, there was no significance

Rapid naming in Brazilian students with dyslexia and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Introduction: The effective development of reading and writing skills requires the concerted action of several abilities, one of which is phonological processing. One of the foremost components of phonological processing is rapid automatized naming (RAN)- the ability to identify and recognize a given item by the activation and concomitant articulation of its name. Objective: To assess the RAN performance of schoolchildren with dyslexia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with their peers. Methods: In total, 70 schoolchildren aged between 8‒11 years participated in the study. Of these, 16 children had a multiprofessional diagnosis of ADHD while 14 had been diagnosed with dyslexia. Matched with these groups, 40 schoolchildren with no history of developmental impairments were also evaluated. The RAN test was administered to assess the length of time required to name a series of familiar visual stimuli. The statistical analysis was conducted using measures of descriptive statistics and the 2-sample t-test at the 5% significance level. Results: The performance of the group with dyslexia was inferior to that of the control group, in all tasks and the ADHD group had inferior performance for color and letters-naming tasks. The schoolchildren with dyslexia and those with ADHD showed very similar response times. Age has shown to be an important variable to be analyzed separately. Children with typical language development have faster answers as they aged on colors and digits tasks while children with dyslexia or ADHD do not show improvement with age. Conclusions: The schoolchildren with dyslexia took longer to complete all tasks and ADHD took longer to complete digits and objects tasks in comparison to their peers with typical development. This ability tends to improve with age, which is not the case, however, with schoolchildren who have ADHD or dyslexia