Comprehension of televised stories by preschool children with ADHD

Investigated visual attention to and story comprehension of televised stori es in 4- to 6-year-old children with attention deficit hyperactivity disord er (ADHD) and comparison children. Half of the children in each group watch ed the program with toys in the room, and the other half watched without to ys. Visual attention to the television was recorded, and story comprehensio n was assessed by performance on cued recall questions. All children attend ed significantly less when toys were present, but the difference when toys were present was greater for children with ADHD. The groups did not differ on recall of factual information when toys were absent. When toys were pres ent, the comparison children shouted no decrement in performance on factual questions, whereas the performance of children with ADHD was significantly worse. On questions testing causal connections, the children with ADHD per formed more poorly than comparison children regardless of whether toys were present. Implications of these results for understanding and treating the academic and social difficulties of children with ADHD are discussed.