title: Spelling difficulties in school-aged girls with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: behavioral, psycholinguistic, cognitive, and graphomotor correlates.
abstract: Writing difficulties are common among children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but the nature of these difficulties has not been well studied. Here we relate behavioral, psycholinguistic, cognitive (memory/executive), and graphomotor measures to spelling skills in school-age girls with ADHD (n = 30) and an age-matched group of typically developed spellers (TYPSP, n = 35). When subdividing the ADHD group into those with poor (ADHDPSP, n = 19) and typical spelling (ADHDTYPSP, n = 11), the two subgroups did not differ with regard to inattentive or hyperactive-impulsive symptom severity according to parent or teacher ratings. Both ADHD subgroups also had equally severe difficulties in graphomotor control-handwriting and (parent ratings of) written expression as compared to the TYPSP group. In contrast, ADHDPSP had problems relative to ADHDTYPSP and TYPSP on phonological and orthographic recoding (choice tasks) and verbal memory (digit span) and were more likely to make commissions on a continuous performance task (CPT). Further analyses using the collapsed ADHD group showed that both digit span and the presence of CPT commissions predicted spelling performance independently of each other. Finally, results showed that phonological recoding skills mediated the association between digit span and spelling performance in ADHD. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.
authors.affiliation: University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden psyjaas@psy.gu.se.
authors.forename: Jakob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Åsberg Johnels
authors.affiliation: University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Svenny
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kopp
authors.affiliation: University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gillberg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015897:Comorbidity; D004410:Dyslexia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006236:Handwriting; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D019957:Motor Skills Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010700:Phonetics; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D014956:Writing