COGNITIVE PROFILES IN SPECIAL LEARNING DISORDER COMORBID WITH ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER

Objective:

Specific learning disorders (SLD) are common common psychiatric disorders among schoolage children. The co-occurrence of SLD and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a frequent finding. The purpose of our study was to investigate the frequency of comorbidity of ADHD and SLD and influences of this comorbidity on cognitive profiles.

Method:

The study sample was 70 children (51 boys, 19 girls), ages between 7-11 years, who were consecutively referred to a child and adolescent psychiatry department because of school failure and met DSM-IV criteria for specific learning disorders. Cognitive profiles of the subjects were examined with the Learning Disorders Checklist, the DSM-IV Based Behavior Disorders Screening and Rating Scale, the Bender-Gestalt for Young Children, the Visual-Aural Digit Span Test-Form A, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, the Reading-Writing Assessment Form, and the Edinburg Lateralization Test.

Results:

Of the SLD cases, 43 (61.4%) also had a diagnosis of ADHD. The SLD+ADHD group showed more reading errors when compared with patients with SLD alone. The SLD+ADHD group had lower scores on the Visual-Aural Digit Span Test -Form A than the only SLD group. Oppositional defiant symptoms of the SLD+ADHD group were more than the SLD group.

Conclusion:

The findings of this study point out that SLD cases with comorbid ADHD have poorer cognitive functions. Determining co-occurence of SLD and ADHD, and finding suitable treatments to these problems will provide academic and social improvements in these cases.