Foreign Language Development in ADHD-Diagnosed and Non-Diagnosed Children: An Experimental Research

Objective: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent behavioural disorders among children in which L1 impairments are often displayed. There is a conventional assumption that ADHD-diagnosed children experience difficulties in L2 development as well. The present research aimed at investigating possible L2-related behaviours of ADHD-diagnosed children.Methods: To track L2 profiles among ADHD children, this mixed methods study examined L2 learning performance of ADHD-diagnosed children in terms of English phonological, lexical, and syntactic development compared with typically developing children. To this end, 10 ADHD-diagnosed and 10 typically-developing children were recruited from a public primary school located in Kerman, Iran, throughout the 2022-2023 academic year. The participants were then assigned to two experimental groups and given the English instructions with the same instructor. Results: The quantitative results showed that ADHD-diagnosed learners underperformed the typically-developing learners in all phonological, morphological, and syntactic production and recognition tests. However, the only significant difference was in the phonological recognition test (p = 0.04). Also, the qualitative results demonstrated that both groups were almost equally engaged in classroom interactions.Conclusion: The findings highlighted the importance of speech processing and sustained attention in lexical and syntactic learning ability among ADHD students. The implications of the study for L2 instructors were discussed.

Foreign Language Development in ADHD-Diagnosed and Non-Diagnosed Children: An Experimental Research Keywords:

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) , phonology , lexis , syntax