Girls with AD/HD
Abstract
Girls experience a significant number of problems related to AD/HD, which are severe enough to affect their academic and social functioning across the lifespan. Unfortunately, our current diagnostic procedures identify few girls with AD/HD, suggesting they are not receiving adequate services. This study used a new rating scale (Girls with AD/HD are Different, GAAD) and an established one (ACTeRS) to assess 262 girls from the perspective of the girls, their parents, and their teachers. The findings indicated that most factors of the GAAD successfully discriminated between girls with and without AD/HD. From parent and self-ratings, girls with AD/HD were characterized as verbally impulsive, easily bored, and having difficulty waiting. These findings suggested that girls showed hyperactivity verbally, whereas boys are reported to express it motorically. Girls also behave differently from boys with AD/HD by engaging in small motor activities (e.g., doodling, hair twirling) and seek a fast pace in conversations and work, trip and bump into things, and have poor handwriting. New information was that girls with AD/HD broke social rules, stirred up trouble, and associated with friends whom their parents do not approve, and emotionally they lacked regulation, citing greater moodiness, anger, and stubbornness than other girls. Parents identified more girls than did teachers and when teachers did identify girls with AD/HD, there was evidence that they failed to refer these girls for services. The importance of successful social relationships to the self-concepts of these girls was in evidence on the GAAD scale and the ACTeRS. The self-concept of girls with AD/HD was significantly correlated with self-ratings of attention, inappropriate behavior, social skills, and social involvement, but not with self-ratings of impulsivity and hyperactivity—in contrast to the literature on boys. On the positive side, girls with AD/HD were actively involved with friends, organizations, and activities, which may serve as a protective factor. The implications of these findings for improving our identification of girls with AD/HD and of their long-term outcome were discussed.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Zentall, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Special education|Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology|Psychotherapy
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