The Development Of ADHD Chinldren's Ability On Allocation Of Study Time

As one of the key issues of the memory monitoring and control, allocation ofstudy time is the process that the learners regulate and control the subjective resourcesto reach the learning goal. There are researches mostly on adults and normal children.This study chose the children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) asparticipants. The development of the ability on allocation of time was examined in theway of external factors which included material difficulty, time limitation and theretrieving means and of subjective factors such as memory monitoring.The research 1 adopted the model of "Self-paced and Experimenter-paced study"and "Self-paced study only" for 46 ADHD children with normal intelligence to learnpair-words of different difficulty. The children were separated into three groupsaccording to their average age respective (9.6 years old, 10.9 years old and 11.9years old). The development of the ability of allocation of time was checked by thecue-recall under the conditions of short time, moderate time and unlimited time.The research 2 also involved another three groups on age in total number of 44ADHD children with normal intelligence who were asked to assess the difficulty rateof the items. The development of the coherence on ease-of-learning judgment (EOL)and allocation of time was investigated under the retrieving means of free recall, cue-recall and rerecognization with "Self-paced study" method.The conclusions came out:Firstly, the ADHD children can allocate time to items of different difficulty. Theycost most of the time on hard items while least of the time on easy ones.It shows thatthe ADHD children can make decision on allocation of study time.Secondly, the level of decision-making on allocation of time is unrelated to timelimitation for ADHD children.It means that they can't adjust their learning strategiesto the changing of the external conditions.Thirdly, the ADHD children can allocate vary time depend on differentretrieving means. They spend the most time on the free recall task while the least timeon rerecognition task. It means that the ADHD children can arrange study timeeffectively with different require of retrieving means.Fourthly, the remarkable G correlation between ease-of-learning judgment andtime allocated shows that the ADHD children can allocate learning time by theirestimate of the difficulty of task. It illustrates that the memory monitoring is one ofthe foundations on allocating study time.