Spelling performance of students with and without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

ABSTRACT Purpose: to characterize and compare the spelling performance of students with and without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Methods: sample including 244 Brazilian students from the 3rd to the 5th year, from three public schools (189 without and 55 with the disorder). Students were assessed and classified according to the spelling errors in a word dictation. The average performance was compared per school year, condition (having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or not) and interaction between year and condition. The performance was also compared to the results of the study by Moojen (2011), on orthographic performance in Elementary School. Results: students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disordershowed a higher average in the total number of errors, in the Phoneme/Grapheme Conversion, Simple Contextual Rules and Language Irregularities categories. In the group without Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, there was a greater reduction of errors among the school grades (3rd, 4th, 5th). In relation to the study by Moojen (2011), students with the disorder had a lower average. Conclusion: evidence showed that the presence ofAttention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorderinfluenced the spelling performance of the students evaluated.