Comparison of Electrophysiological Indices of Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Comorbid With and Without Reading Disorder (ADHD & RD)

BackgroundAttention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neuropsychiatric disorder. Most children and adolescents with ADHD have at least some developmental or mental disorders identified from the early years of elementary school. The most common of these are educational and learning problems in these children, which are probably due to the attention deficits of these children. Therefore, it is expected that the cortical activity pattern of ADHD children is different from ADHD comorbid with learning disabilities, which we have examined in this study.MethodsThis study evaluated the pattern of cortical activity in children 6 to 12 years old with ADHD comorbid with and without the reading disorder (ADHD & RD) using 21-channel electroencephalography. Multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measures in a 2 * 3 * 7 design and T-test was used for statistical analysis.ResultsThe results show that in ADHD children, the activity of different bands increases compared to ADHD comorbid with RD children. In the ADHD group compared to the ADHD comorbid with RD group, the theta/beta ratio in all three regions, especially the anterior region, is higher than the theta/alpha activity in those areas, and this group has significantly higher activity in all three brain regions, especially the anterior region, compared to ADHD comorbid with RD patients.ConclusionsFunctional changes in the left parietal cortex, which is part of the frontoparietal attention network and involved in phonological processing, reading, and calculation, are evident in children with ADHD comorbid with and without the reading disorder (ADHD & RD). However, ADHD without reading disorder shows more activation of the frontoparietal network than ADHD comorbid with reading disorder, and therefore it can be said that ADHD without reading disorder exerts more cognitive control. Therefore, it is likely to be possible to prevent educational problems in these children by using neurofeedback or prescribing drugs that increase the activity of the areas involved in attention.

Reading Comprehension Monitoring of Expository Discourses in Third to Fifth Grade ADHD Children with/without Vocabulary Delay

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate reading comprehension monitoring including three types of error detection (lexical inconsistency, internal inconsistency, external inconsistency) and correction with expository discourse in school-aged children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).Methods: Nineteen ADHD children with vocabulary delay, 17 ADHD children without vocabulary delay, and 20 typically developing children students from third, fourth, and fifth grades participated in the study. In order to assess comprehension monitoring; expository discourses contained three different types of errors. Comprehension monitoring tasks were presented in the following order: First, children were asked to find out errors in two expository texts of comparison and causation. After finding out errors, children were asked to change the appropriate words verbally.Results: ADHD children with vocabulary delay did show difficultly in reading comprehension monitoring tasks when compared to age-matched typically developing children and ADHD children without language impairment. Internal inconsistency was the most difficult error to identify and correct, and lexical inconsistency was the easiest error for all three groups.Conclusion: The result proposed that even children with ADHD who have no difficulty in basic language and reading skills were likely to have difficulty properly using reading comprehension monitoring, which is closely related to working memory and executive functions. The poor comprehension monitoring skills would negatively influence effective reading comprehension.

Long-Range White Matter Microstructural Alterations in Drug-Naive Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Tract-Based Spatial Statistics Study

Background Microstructural changes might underlie white matter (WM) pathology in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). To investigate WM alterations, particularly the changes in long-range fibers, in drug-naive children with ADHD, we conducted tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data. Materials and Methods In this study, 57 children with ADHD and 41 healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled. None of the enrolled ADHD children received any medication before data collection. The difference in fractional anisotropy (FA), and in mean (MD), axial (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) between both groups were calculated using TBSS. WM changes were then correlated with clinical symptoms, including the hyperactivity index score and the impulsivity score. Results Whole-skeleton analysis identified several long-range fibers of decreased FA and increased RD in the ADHD group as compared to the HC group. ADHD children demonstrated decreased FA in the right corpus callosum (CC) splenium, left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, and intersection of the anterior and posterior internal capsule. Moreover, higher RD was observed in the right CC splenium, superior longitudinal fasciculus, and posterior corona radiata. No regions of increased FA or reduced RD were observed, and no differences in MD or AD were noted. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that microstructural WM alterations and changes in the long-range WM connections are present in children with ADHD. We speculate that these changes may relate to the symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity.

Teachers with Special Needs. De-Psychiatrization of Children in Schools

Psychiatrization not only affects adults. Ever more children in Western countries are being diagnosed with a mental disorder of behavior, such as ADHD. Children may often be labelled with the best intentions, for example in order to be able to provide them with suitable care and guidance. However, this labelling can have exclusionary effects and often entails the consequence that important discussion about contextual factors that give rise to (the perception of) unwelcome behavior or academic underperformance rarely, if at all, takes place. In this article we contend that although children are of central concern to schools and the design of pupils’ education, it is important not to make pupils the sole owner of problems that arise. It is therefore high time that a far more critical normative stance towards inclusive education is taken, in which the presently widespread biomedical approach is met with a school community response that focuses not on the nature of individual disorders but on the special need for additional capacity that schools and teachers have in meeting (perceived) deviant behaviors and emotions and/or academic underperformance. We argue that teaching should not set out to remedy individual diagnoses, but that teachers should be supported to extend their professional competence to the benefit of all pupils.

Socio-demographic and clinical correlates of parenting style among parents having ADHD children: a cross-section study

Background ADHD affects 7.8% of the school-aged population, making it one of the most common childhood brain illnesses. It is characterized by abnormally high levels of inattention, activity, and impulsivity at a young age. Being a parent of a child with ADHD is a real challenge, as the parents tend to be more disapproving, critical, and provide more impulse control directions; such parenting style can have an impact on the illnesses course, accentuate its signs and symptoms, and lead to secondary development of co-morbid psychiatric and behavioral problems. This makes the parent-child effect a matter of clinical importance that needs to be carefully assessed and managed. We aimed to estimate the sociodemographic and clinical correlates of parenting attitudes among parents having ADHD children. This cross-sectional study included 48 ADHD children from both sexes, aged from 6 to 12 years old, and their parents. In our study, we applied the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale 5th edition, the Conner’s Parent Rating Scale-revised, the parenting style as perceived by children questionnaire, and the Fahmy and El-Sherbini questionnaire for the measurement of socioeconomic status. Results Mothers of ADHD children had significantly lower scores of over-protections parenting style than the fathers; the current study showed a significant increase in total parenting scores and warmth/support in mild ADHD cases than in moderate and severe ones, and there is a significant increase in the mother’s positive parenting style toward ADHD children with lower levels of social problems, mild cases, and older age. There is a significant increase of positive parenting style toward ADHD children exerted by post graduated, professionally working, and high social class fathers and by working mothers among rural residents and high social class mothers. There is a positive correlation between IQ and a mother’s warmth/support. Conclusion ADHD children with mild symptoms, higher social functioning of the child, high socioeconomic level of the family, better education, and professional occupations of parents were associated with positive parenting style.

The Challenging Role of Theory of Mind in the Mothers of Children with Attention Deficit - Hyperactivity Disorder

Background: While theory of mind (ToM) deficit is frequently reported in children and adult with ADHD, there is no study investigating characteristics of ToM in their parents. This study aimed to investigate understanding intentionality as an important component of ToM ability in ADHD mothers and typically developing children’s mothers. Methods: Through available sampling, (50 mothers), 23 ADHD’s mothers were compared to 27 age and IQ matched typically developing children’s mothers. All participants were assessed using the Animated Triangle Task for ToM performance and the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test (CPT) to evaluate neurocognitive performance. The Mann–Whitney and t-test were used as data analysis methods to examine differences between two groups. Results: poor performance of ADHD mothers was at ToM task. (p < 0.001) However, no significant difference was found between the two groups of mothers in CPT-II performance (p > 0.001). Performance of ToM was not significantly associated with CPT-II. Conclusions: ADHD mothers may have deficits in understanding intentionality. The findings suggest that researchers pay more attention to recognizing social cognition and social communication characteristics of the parents of ADHD children. It seems that using specific training programs for the parents of ADHD children to achieve ToM capacities can contribute to the pro motion of their children’s social development.

Cataloguing of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) among Children

<p>Children are the dream of parents. Children ADHD is a bygone and chronic disorder which leads to problems in children. If not solved in childhood stages will continue in future till adolescents. The disorder consequences are difficulty to study the tasks which are related to anxiety, depression and other psychological problems. Hence the disorder must be resolved in the early stage to control any type of consequences in future for our children. The medical field is an eminent area in today’s world such as signal processing, Imaging, MRI, EEG etc. to diagnose and offer treatment. Even technology field too contributing to ADHD children by providing different techniques in different areas such as IoT, mobile, Robot, Application, virtual reality, augmented reality, machine learning techniques etc. to give diagnosis and treatment methods. The paper reviews and summarizes the set of features, diagnosis methods, treatment rules for ADHD children.</p>

Cataloguing of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) among Children

<p>Children are the dream of parents. Children ADHD is a bygone and chronic disorder which leads to problems in children. If not solved in childhood stages will continue in future till adolescents. The disorder consequences are difficulty to study the tasks which are related to anxiety, depression and other psychological problems. Hence the disorder must be resolved in the early stage to control any type of consequences in future for our children. The medical field is an eminent area in today’s world such as signal processing, Imaging, MRI, EEG etc. to diagnose and offer treatment. Even technology field too contributing to ADHD children by providing different techniques in different areas such as IoT, mobile, Robot, Application, virtual reality, augmented reality, machine learning techniques etc. to give diagnosis and treatment methods. The paper reviews and summarizes the set of features, diagnosis methods, treatment rules for ADHD children.</p>

Sensory Behaviours and Resting Parasympathetic Functions among Children with and without ADHD

Previous studies suggest that parasympathetic functions support sensory behaviours. However, the relationship between sensory behaviours and parasympathetic functions remain inconclusive and inconsistent among children with and without attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This research aims to examine the sensory behaviours and resting parasympathetic functions among children with and without ADHD. We compared sensory behaviours and baseline parasympathetic functions of 64 participants, with 42 typically developing and 24 ADHD male children aged 7–12 years. Sensory behaviours were evaluated using the sensory profile. Baseline parasympathetic functions were indexed using the normalized unit of heart rate variability high-frequency bands (HF n.u.). Children underwent an experimental protocol consisting of watching a silent cartoon movie while HF n.u. is continuously monitored, within a controlled environment. The results of this research showed significantly lower HF n.u. (t(64) = 7.84, p < 0.01 ) and sensory processing total score (t(64) = 14.13 = p < 0.01 ) among children with ADHD compared to their typically developing peers. Likewise, a significant moderate positive correlation (r = 0.36, p < 0.05 ) was found between the HF n.u. and sensory profile total scores among children with ADHD. Children with ADHD have significantly lower resting state parasympathetic functions compared to their typically developing peers.

The incidence of dysgraphia in Arabic language in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Background Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a brain disorder marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development. Although children with ADHD made much more spelling errors, they had a distinct pattern of letter insertions, replacements, transpositions, and omissions. This mistake type is sometimes referred to as graphemic buffer errors, and it is caused by a lack of attention required for motor planning. The aim of study was to assess the incidence of dysgraphia in Arabic language in children with ADHD for better helping, diagnosis and management of those children. Results Ten percent of ADHD children had normal handwriting with no disability, 40% had excellent handwriting with a minimum of disability and 50% of ADHD children showed mild to moderate disability. There were significant differences between ADHD children and control children regarding results of each item on the subtest of handwriting of dysgraphia disability scale (DDS), respecting lines, spacing between words, letter direction, spelling a sentence, and punctuation. Drawing affected in ADHD children. The finger tapping speed was affected in almost ADHD children. Conclusions Dysgraphia highly presents in our sample of ADHD children with poor fine motor skills in ADHD children than normal children. ADHD children have illegible handwriting, not respecting lines, insufficient space between and within words, multiple spelling errors, and omissions of letters or words. Graphesthesia and stereognosis are affected more in ADHD children than in control children drawing and finger tapping speed affected in ADHD children.