Methodological Issues in Assessing the Relationship Among ADD, Medication Effects And Reading Performance

Authors

  • Miriam Cherkes-Julkowski
  • Jonathan Stolzenberg
  • Nanaette Hatzes
  • Joseph Madaus

Abstract

Several studies report findings that reading problems are not strongly associated with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and that medication used to treat ADD does not improve reading perfonnance in children with the disorder..

This paper suggests that the methodologies used to draw these conclusions have ignored a number of issues including: (1) ways to judge the presence of reading disorders, (2) measurement of the full range of reading perfonnance, and (3) measurement of ability in order to make ability-perfonnance comparisons. New data are reported which indicate increased reading difficulty as reading passages get longer and also indicate improved reading perfonnance in some children with ADD who are optimally medicated. Comorbid language disorder was found to be associated with lowered reading perfonnance in children taking medication.

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Section

Articles