| As The Special Education Promotion Plan(2014-2016)proposed to comprehensively promote inclusive education,more and more special children are entering ordinary schools from special schools.Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD)and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD)are the two common kinds of special needs children in the kindergarten.In today's kindergartens,when children with ADHD suddenly disrupt classroom order,attack others and lose control of their emotions,or ASD children are incompatible with each other,teachers often feel helpless and exhausted bodily and mentally due to the lack of effective intervention methods and educational measures.It is necessary for preschool teachers to have deeper understandings of the developmental characteristics of special children's cognitive abilities,such as executive function and theory of mind,in order to implement the inclusive education concept truly and effectively.A large number of studies have confirmed that executive function impairment is one of the core defects of ADHD.At the same time,Damasio proposed the hypothesis that there might be executive dysfunction in ASD.Brain imaging showed that the prefrontal lobe is the common physiological basis of executive function and theory of mind,which are closely related.Therefore,understanding the specificity and deficiency in their executive function(EF)and theory of mind(ToM)can help us provide the most appropriate education and intervention to promote the development of the two special types of children.Based on the IQ and age matching,we tested 30 pairs of children with ADHD and typical development(TD)children.Based on IQ matching,we tested 30 pairs of children with ASD and typical development(TD)children by using tasks of cold & hot EFs and ToM.The results are as follows:(1)ADHDs' were significantly lower than TDs' in accuracy of cold EF,their performances in inhibitory control(tasks with three different complexity)had significant differences,but performances in working memory only had significant difference in visual spatial tasks;(2)ASDs' ability was significantly lower than TDs' in inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility,but the ability of working memory was equivalent;(3)ADHDs' ability was significantly better than ASDs' and worse than TDs' in cold EF;(4)In hot EF task,the peeking behavior scores of ADHDs' and ASDs' were significantly higher than TDs',but there was no significant difference between the two special groups.The attention allocation strategies scores of ADHDs' and ASDs' were significantly higher than TDs',and ASDs' scored significant higher than ADHDs'.Attention allocation strategies of both special children are at a low level,and ASDs' are weaker;(5)The ability of ToM had no significant difference between ADHDs' and TDs',ASDs' ability of ToM was significantly lower than TDs' and ADHDs'.(6)In the cold EF task,ADHDs' and ASDs' cognitive flexibility and inhibition control,cognitive flexibility and working memory are significantly correlated.(7)TDs' three sub-components of Cold EF,ASDs' inhibition control and cognitive flexibility,ADHDs' working memory and cognitive flexibility are significantly correlated with hot EF;(8)ASDs' three sub-components of Cold EF,ADHDs' inhibition control,TDs' working memory are significantly correlated with ToM.There is no significant correlation between the hot EF and ToM of two kinds of special children.In conclusion,our findings confirmed that ADHDs' EF lags significantly behind TDs' in all aspects,and these differences will increase with task complexity.In addition to working memory,ASDs' EF and ToM lags significantly behind TDs'.Therefore,educators need to apply game-based EF training into ADHD and ASD children's daily life.When formulating individualized education programs for specialchildren,kindergarten teachers and related professionals should incorporate EF and ToM into the overall intervention program in order to improve their core deficits more effectively and emphasize on the cultivation of their self-control ability. |
PDF Full Text Request