Disfluency production in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder during a narrative task

Abstract

Limited evidence exists on ADHD-related disfluency and lexical diversity behaviour in connected speech, although a significant number of individuals with ADHD experience language difficulties at different linguistic levels. Using a retrospective cross-sectional design with data from the Asymmetries TalkBank database, this study aims to capture differences in disfluency production and lexical diversity between children with ADHD and Typically Developing (TD) children. These measures include the frequencies of different disfluency subtypes and two lexical diversity measures, and are correlated with performance on a working memory task and a response inhibition task. Results indicate that the ADHD group produced a higher mean frequency of each disfluency type, but no differences were found to be significant. Correlation analysis revealed that filled pauses and revisions were negatively correlated with working memory and response inhibition in the ADHD group, whereas they were positively correlated with working memory performance in the TD group. This suggests that the underlying causes of disfluency differ in each group and that further research is required of speech monitoring ability in children with ADHD.