Elizabeth Lorch, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky and one of the authors of that study, also studied children’s ability to comprehend televised stories. While children with A.D.H.D. were able to recall facts from the stories they watched just as well as other children, there was a difference in their ability to understand the narrative and to separate out what was important.
“Why did an event happen, why did a character do this ”” that’s where the comprehension and recall of children with A.D.H.D. tends to fall down,” she said.
Her co-author Richard Milich, also a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, suggested that besides the primary implications of this problem for academic performance, this finding may also shed light on social difficulties.
“This inability to see causal relations may affect this social problem we’ve known for 30 years,” he said. “These kids have dramatic social problems. They’re highly rejected by their peers.”
Very, very interesting. My son has ADHD and was fixated on the “screens.” When he was a toddler, he’d want to watch the same Disney film over and over again without a break, just staring, and he’d cry and shriek inconsolably when I’d turn it off.
When he got older, the docs at that time said his love of video games might be beneficial as they could be used to help teach him cause and effect. He was so incredibly impulsive.
It didn’t work, though. Instead, I learned how to break down situations for him to slow him down, ask him questions, and help him decide and proceed. I watched his behavioral and other cues constantly when we were out in public and got quite good at predicting when he was about to do something impulsive. I’d redirect him with the word “stop!” or “wait!” It was more difficult to teach him how to do this for himself as he got older.
This research makes sense and I’m so glad parents now have these resources. It was difficult to have a child who learned, maneuvered and interacted with the world so differently than other children, while many were insisting that there was no such thing as ADHD.