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Verbal fluency in adults diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood

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ADHD Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorders

Abstract

It has been increasingly believed that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder with lifelong course associated with cognitive difficulties including among others, language production, verbal learning, and verbal fluency. However, research is limited to children and adolescents, and very few researchers have examined the impact of ADHD in adulthood on the cognitive domain. The aim of the present study is to examine the performance of adults, diagnosed with ADHD in childhood, on semantic and phonemic verbal fluency tasks. It is hypothesized that adults with ADHD will perform worse on both tasks than matched controls. Sixty university students (30 diagnosed with ADHD in childhood and 30 matched controls) of mean age 20.5 participated in the study. They all completed two verbal fluency tasks. The ADHD group had statistically significant lower scores than the non-ADHD group on the phonemic, but not the semantic task. The study provides some evidence that ADHD in childhood has a negative impact on adults’ phonemic verbal fluency. This finding could be probably explained by the fact that phonemic fluency is considered more cognitively demanding and impacting more on the frontal lobe functions, known to be impaired in ADHD, than semantic fluency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Special Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

    Georgia Andreou

  2. Department of Human Communication Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Kate Trott

Authors
  1. Georgia Andreou
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  2. Kate Trott
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Correspondence to Georgia Andreou.

Appendix: Non-diagnostic ADHD questionnaire

Appendix: Non-diagnostic ADHD questionnaire

Indicate the degree you feel the following symptoms for more than six months: 1 = not at all present; 2 = just a little; 3 = pretty much.

  1. a.

    restless or overactive

  2. b.

    excitable, impulsive

  3. c.

    disturb other people

  4. d.

    fail to finish things you start; short attention span

  5. e.

    constantly fidgeting

  6. f.

    inattentive, easily distracted

  7. g.

    demands must be met immediately; easily frustrated

  8. h.

    cry often and easily

  9. i.

    mood changes quickly and drastically

  10. j.

    temper outbursts, explosive and unpredictable behavior

(Adapted from Conners Hyperctivity Index, 1998, cited in De Quiros and Kinsbourne 2001.)

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Andreou, G., Trott, K. Verbal fluency in adults diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood. ADHD Atten Def Hyp Disord 5, 343–351 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12402-013-0112-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12402-013-0112-z

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