Relationship between symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and speech-language-hearing aspects

ABSTRACT Purpose: to investigate the association of symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity with language development and cognitive, environmental, socioeconomic, and quality of life aspects in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Methods: an observational, analytical, cross-sectional study with a sex-stratified sample of 38 children 7 to 12 years old, diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The assessments approached sociodemographic and environmental aspects, the quality of life, language comprehension, rapid automatic naming, phonological working memory, vocabulary, reading and writing processes and metalinguistic skills. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were conducted at the 5% significance level. Results: there was a statistically significant association between the profile of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and behavioral aspects. There was no significant association of the forms of manifestation of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder with the quality of life, oral language, written language and phonological processing skills. Conclusion: children with hyperactive profiles had a better performance, whereas children with combined and predominantly inattentive profiles had similar performances. Although no statistically significant associations were found between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and most of the variables analyzed in this research, it contributes to the discussion of the speech-language-hearing diagnosis.