Van Neste Jessica, Hayden Angela, Lorch Elizabeth P, Milich Richard
University of Kentucky, 125 Kastle Hall, Lexington, KY, 40506, USA,
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2015 Feb;43(2):259-70. doi: 10.1007/s10802-014-9899-0.
Academic difficulties are well-documented among children with ADHD. Exploring these difficulties through story comprehension research has revealed deficits among children with ADHD in making causal connections between events and in using causal structure and thematic importance to guide recall of stories. Important to theories of story comprehension and implied in these deficits is the ability to make inferences. Often, characters' goals are implicit and explanations of events must be inferred. The purpose of the present study was to compare the inferences generated during story comprehension by 23 7- to 11-year-old children with ADHD (16 males) and 35 comparison peers (19 males). Children watched two televised stories, each paused at five points. In the experimental condition, at each pause children told what they were thinking about the story, whereas in the control condition no responses were made during pauses. After viewing, children recalled the story. Several types of inferences and inference plausibility were coded. Children with ADHD generated fewer of the most essential inferences, plausible explanatory inferences, than did comparison children, both during story processing and during story recall. The groups did not differ on production of other types of inferences. Group differences in generating inferences during the think-aloud task significantly mediated group differences in patterns of recall. Both groups recalled more of the most important story information after completing the think-aloud task. Generating fewer explanatory inferences has important implications for story comprehension deficits in children with ADHD.
多动症儿童存在学习困难，这一点已有充分的文献记载。通过故事理解研究来探究这些困难，结果显示多动症儿童在建立事件之间的因果联系以及运用因果结构和主题重要性来指导故事回忆方面存在缺陷。对故事理解理论很重要且隐含在这些缺陷中的是推理能力。通常，角色的目标是隐含的，事件的解释必须通过推理得出。本研究的目的是比较23名7至11岁多动症儿童（16名男性）和35名对照儿童（19名男性）在故事理解过程中产生的推理。孩子们观看了两个电视故事，每个故事在五个点处暂停。在实验条件下，每次暂停时孩子们要说出他们对故事的想法，而在对照条件下，暂停期间不做任何回应。观看后，孩子们回忆故事。对几种类型的推理和推理合理性进行了编码。多动症儿童在故事处理和故事回忆过程中产生的最重要的推理，即可信的解释性推理，比对照儿童少。两组在其他类型推理的产生上没有差异。在出声思考任务中产生推理的组间差异显著地调节了回忆模式的组间差异。完成出声思考任务后，两组都回忆起了更多最重要的故事信息。产生较少的解释性推理对多动症儿童的故事理解缺陷具有重要意义。
