ADHD and Dysgraphia: Underlying Mechanisms

Multiple complaints in the domain of writing are common among children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In this work we sought to characterize the writing disorder by studying dysgraphia in twenty 6 th grade boys with ADHD and normal reading skills matched to 20 healthy boys who...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cortex 2007-08, Vol.43 (6), p.700-709
Main Authors: Adi-Japha, Esther, Landau, Yael E., Frenkel, Lior, Teicher, Mina, Gross-Tsur, Varda, Shalev, Ruth S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
agraphia
Agraphia - complications
Agraphia - physiopathology
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity - complications
Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity - physiopathology
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Biomechanical Phenomena
Case-Control Studies
Child
Handwriting
Humans
Intention
learning disabilities
Linguistics
Male
Matched-Pair Analysis
Neuropsychological Tests
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reading
Reference Values
spelling
Statistics, Nonparametric
Citations: Items that cite this one
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Summary:Multiple complaints in the domain of writing are common among children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In this work we sought to characterize the writing disorder by studying dysgraphia in twenty 6 th grade boys with ADHD and normal reading skills matched to 20 healthy boys who served as a comparison group. Dysgraphia, defined as deficits in spelling and handwriting, was assessed according to neuropsychological explanatory processes within 3 primary domains: linguistic processing, motor programming and motor kinematics. Children with ADHD made significantly more spelling errors, but showed a unique pattern introducing letter insertions, substitutions, transpositions and omissions. This error type, also known as graphemic buffer errors, can be explained by impaired attention aspects needed for motor planning. Kinematic manifestations of writing deficits were fast, inaccurate and an inefficient written product accompanied by higher levels of axial pen pressure. These results suggest that the spelling errors and writing deficits seen in children with ADHD and normal reading skills stem primarily from non-linguistic deficits, while linguistic factors play a secondary role. Recommendations for remediation include educational interventions, use of word processing and judicious use of psychostimulants.
ISSN:0010-9452
1973-8102
DOI:10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70499-4