Chapter 9 Analysis- The Intersection of ADHD, Executive Function, and Reading Comprehension
The field of special education is flooded with a wide range of conditions that ravage students and slow them down in terms of knowledge acquisition. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is one of the conditions that disadvantage students as it makes it challenging for students to grasp content at the same pace as other learners. The fact that this disorder affects their executive function and reading comprehension means that without special interventions, learners with this disorder will always struggle to cope with what teachers teach in class. Understanding this disorder and how it affects an individual’s executive function and reading comprehension can be pivotal in enabling teachers, parents, and other educational stakeholders to craft interventions to help these learners achieve their academic goals.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition characterized by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. It is not specific to any age because it can affect persons from any age group. However, symptoms emerge in childhood, and there is a possibility of persisting into adulthood. Unique challenges are experiences in each developmental stage. The disorder is known to significantly affect the individual’s daily functioning and overall social life. The diverse presentation of ADHD is evident through three primary subtypes: predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactive-impulsive, and combined presentation (Magnus et al., 2023). Each subtype manifests with distinct symptomatology. Notably, some individuals only experience attention difficulties, while others will struggle with hyperactivity. Besides, there are those who will experience impulsivity due to ADHD. However, it is worth noting that many individuals experience a combination of the three, further complicating the situation.
Individuals diagnosed with ADHD commonly face challenges in various aspects of their lives due to ADHD symptoms. Limited attention and lack of focus are highly linked to this disorder. Learners who have this disorder will always struggle when undertaking activities that require prolonged attention. They do not carry out their studies effectively because their focus is compromised. Also, ADHD makes individuals poor time managers, and their organization is usually chaotic. As a result, they miss deadlines and find it difficult to adhere to laid down routines. For learners, missed deadlines for the submission of assignments become rampant. Also, incomplete and disorganized work becomes part of their submissions. The disorder is also associated with impulsivity, which leads to poor decision-making and engagement in risky behaviors. For learners with this condition, school life might become challenging if the condition is not understood by the teachers and appropriate interventions are not taken.
The etiology of ADHD is complex, involving a combination of genetic, environmental, and neurological factors. The exact cause of this disorder remains unclear, but scientists have pointed to genetic predisposition as a dominant factor. In this regard, studies indicate that the heritability of this condition is about 80% (Faraone & Larsson, 2019). However, some environmental factors, such as prenatal exposure to toxins, a mother smoking during pregnancy, and childhood adversities, have also been noted to heighten the chances of a child developing this disorder. Furthermore, alteration in brain structure, especially the regions that are responsible for attention, impulse control, and executive function, can easily lead to ADHD.
Executive Function
Executive function encompasses a broad set of cognitive processes that facilitate goal-directed behavior and adaptive functioning in daily life. Through executive function, one can effectively coordinate and integrate several mental abilities to achieve desired results. Working memory is a crucial component of executive function. Through it, individuals can retain information (Harris et al., 2013). Working memory is instrumental when it comes to allowing individuals to retain relevant information. Besides, it simultaneously processes new stimuli, facilitating individuals to perform tasks such as following instructions, solving complex problems, and understanding abstract concepts.
Another aspect of executive function is inhibitory control. It helps a person regulate and resist impulsivity, thus preventing the individual from being overwhelmed by them. Individuals who possess high levels of inhibitory control tend to be more focused. For students, they tend to focus on their academic goals and work towards attaining them. They adequately resist any urges that might derail them from achieving their set targets. Conversely, a deficit in inhibitory control has detrimental effects on an individual. They tend to be overwhelmed by impulsivity and find themselves acting without minding the repercussions of their actions. For learners, this might lead to behavioral issues in school.
The last integral part of executive function is planning and organization. This enables individuals to manage tasks and resources that are meant to execute the tasks. Good planning and organization help individuals set priorities and come up with strategies to carry out their work. This is crucial for learners as they can know what they want to achieve in different subjects and lay down strategies to achieve particular goals. Besides, it helps individuals break complex tasks into small steps that are easy to manage. Individuals who lack these skills tend to be poor in time management, procrastinate activities, and churn out work that is disorganized and incomplete. For students, such attributes can not only lead to poor grades but also problems with the school administration.
Tying all these aspects to ADHD, it is worth noting that individuals with this disorder commonly have executive function deficits. Most of them exhibit a blend of functional impairments ranging from disorganization to impulsivity and difficulty prioritizing tasks (Volkow & Swanson, 2013). It becomes worse if the individual is a student because they will most probably struggle to have organized study habits. Besides, these learners with ADHD may be unable to manage their time or plan their assignments in the way the teacher wants. As a result, missed deadlines and incomplete and disorganized work become common, making them perform poorly, if the condition is not understood and interventions undertaken.
Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a fundamental skill that enables individuals to extract meaning from written text, facilitating learning, communication, and critical thinking. At its core, reading comprehension involves the integration of various cognitive processes to understand and interpret the content of a text. Decoding words, or recognizing and pronouncing written symbols, lays the foundation for comprehension by allowing individuals to access the information contained within the text (Harris et al., 2013). Understanding vocabulary, or the meaning of words and phrases, further enhances comprehension by providing context and nuance to the text.
Reading comprehension also encompasses an individual engaging with the text to make inferences about it. Besides, it involves drawing conclusions about the text after reading it. The last stage is synthesizing the information by bringing different parts and ideas of the text together so as to form concrete facts regarding the text. Working memory, a component of executive function, plays an important role in reading comprehension. Through it, an individual is able to hold and manage information—one is able to select what to retain from the text they have read.
However, for individuals with ADHD, the skill of reading comprehension comes with significant challenges. The symptoms that this disorder presents make individuals with ADHD struggle a lot when engaging with a text. Paying full attention to the text becomes difficult as they have attention deficits. This leads to inadequate comprehension. The disorder also comes with deficits in terms of focus, making affected individuals struggle in terms of connecting ideas and retaining information from the read text (Harris et al., 2013). Learners with this disorder tend to skip pages of a text they are reading. Also, they are prone to giving premature responses when confronted with comprehension questions.
Summary
In summary, it is evident that there is a significant intersection between ADHD, executive function, and reading comprehension. Individuals with ADHD will always find themselves having deficiencies in executive function skills and reading comprehension. Their academic journeys become highly compromised as they cannot keep up with the pace of instruction in school. ADHD comes with compromised attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Students with this disorder are always distracted in class as their attention spans are short. Besides, they may tend to exhibit behavioral issues since the impulsive nature of ADHD might make them act without taking into account the consequences of their actions. Their executive skills are also compromised. Individuals with ADHD showcase poor organization and planning skills, and hence, they tend to do unsatisfactory and disorganized work. When it comes to reading and comprehending texts, students with ADHD disorder have a difficult time interacting with the text as they have low attention spans. Impulsivity and lack of focus might make them skip pages of the text or even abandon the text. As such, understanding the complexities brought by ADHD is important for teachers, parents, and educational stakeholders in order to tailor interventions meant to help these learners realize academic success.
References
Faraone, S. V., & Larsson, H. (2019). Genetics of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Molecular Psychiatry, 24(4), 562–575. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-018-0070-0
Harris, K. R., Graham, S., & Lee, S. H. (2013). Handbook of learning disabilities (2nd ed.). The Guilford Press.
Magnus, W., Nazir, S., Anilkumar, A. C., & Shaban, K. (2023). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441838/
Volkow, N. D., & Swanson, J. M. (2013). Adult attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. New England Journal of Medicine, 369(20), 1935–1944. https://doi.org/10.1056/
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Question 
Chapter Analysis Paper Assignment Instructions
For this assignment, you will read and analyze Chapter 9 of the Swanson, Harris, & Graham (2013) textbook and research the concepts covered in the chapter utilizing scholarly journal articles. After reading the assigned chapter and scholarly journal articles, you will write a paper comparing what the research says about the given topics. Include the following:
Chapter 9 Analysis- The Intersection of ADHD, Executive Function, and Reading Comprehension
The paper must be between 3-4 pages (excluding title page, reference page, and abstract)
- APA formatting-
- title page
- reference page
- abstract
- headings that include:
- Introduction
- Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
- Executive Function
- Reading Comprehension
- Summary
- At least 3 citations from the textbook and at least 3 citations from scholarly journal articles.