Comparing Theory of Mind in 11- and 12-Year-Old Students With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disabilities

Attention–Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Learning Disability (LD) are the most commonly used diagnoses for children and adolescents who experience academic and behavioral difficulties. Behaviors associated with ADHD can result in secondary emotional, social, and family problems that do not affect a student’s ability to learn but, rather, his or her availability to learn. One important aspect that is focused on in recent years to understand the reasons behind these difficulties, is the theory of mind (ToM). ToM is one of the important constituents of social cognition. Children and adolescents with ADHD or LD have problems in executive functions that cause problems in processing social problems and solving them. These problems can be explained by social cognition and ToM. This study aimed to compare the ToM in 11– and 12–year–old students with ADHD and LD.

This research is a descriptive and comparative causal study. The statistical population included all students with ADHD and LD studying in the sixth grade of schools located in the 13th district of Tehran City, Iran in 2020. Of whom, 90 children with ADHD and 90 children with LD who were eligible entered the study. They were selected by the available sampling method. After dropping some samples, the number of each group reached 89 children. The inclusion criteria were diagnosis of ADHD or LD by a child psychologist; study in special schools; lacking similar clinical disorders, chronic physical illness, and retardation. An incomplete response to the questionnaires was considered as the exclusion criterion. The research tool was the Theory of Mind Test (Ghamrani et al., 2006). Data analysis was done using the Chi–square test and the t test comparing the averages of two independent groups at a significance level of 0.05 by SPSS software.

The results showed a significant difference between the groups of children with ADHD and LD in terms of the ToM (p<0.001). So that children with LD (26.37±4.90) compared to children with ADHD (15.07±3.20) had higher levels of ToM.

According to research findings, children with ADHD have more ToM defects compared to children with learning disabilities.