Getting clued in: Inferential processing and comprehension monitoring in children with ADHD

Children with ADHD have been shown to have difficulty with a variety of story comprehension tasks, specifically those involving understanding of causal relations among story events. Story comprehension has been found to be strongly related to crucial academic skills like making inferences and monitoring ongoing understanding of texts and lectures. Thus, studying these skills in children with ADHD may shed some light on the academic difficulties they exhibit. Thirty-two boys with ADHD and 41 nonreferred boys between the ages of 7 and 12 years participated. Three tasks were employed to measure how boys create, monitor, and evaluate inferences; distinguish between consistent and inconsistent story information; and verbally represent their understanding of a story as it is ongoing. The difficulties boys with ADHD had with all of these tasks suggest that academic intervention specifically focusing on these areas is needed.