How Are Cognition and Literacy Related in Children with ADHD?

What you need to know

• Working memory shows moderate associations with multiple aspects of literacy in children with ADHD, including reading comprehension, word reading, writing, and spelling.
• Processing speed has small, inconsistent relationships with literacy skills in this population.
• Inhibition may be more relevant for spelling compared to reading skills, though more research is needed.
• Attention has been understudied in relation to literacy skills in children with ADHD.

Working Memory and Literacy

Working memory refers to our ability to temporarily hold and manipulate information in our minds. This cognitive skill plays an important role in many academic tasks.

The review found consistent moderate relationships between working memory and various literacy skills in children with ADHD:

• Reading comprehension (understanding written text)
• Word reading (accurately reading individual words)
• Writing
• Spelling

This suggests that working memory difficulties, which are common in ADHD, may impact literacy performance across multiple domains. For example, a child with poor working memory may struggle to hold the beginning of a sentence in mind while reading to the end, making comprehension more difficult.

The connection between working memory and reading speed was less clear. One study found only a small, non-significant relationship between these skills. This indicates working memory may be more important for accuracy than speed when it comes to reading.

Processing Speed and Literacy

Processing speed refers to how quickly a person can take in information, make sense of it, and begin to respond. The review found mixed results regarding processing speed and literacy in children with ADHD:

• Small relationships were found between processing speed and both word reading and reading comprehension in some studies.
• Other studies found no significant connections between processing speed and reading measures.
• One study reported a moderate correlation between processing speed and writing skills.

The inconsistent findings may be due to differences in how processing speed was measured across studies. Overall, processing speed appears less consistently linked to literacy compared to working memory in this population.

Inhibition and Literacy

Inhibition involves the ability to control impulses and resist distractions. Only two studies in the review examined inhibition in relation to literacy skills:

• One study found a moderate negative correlation between inhibition and spelling. This means children with poorer inhibition tended to have poorer spelling skills.
• Another study reported only small, non-significant relationships between inhibition and both word reading and reading comprehension.

These limited findings suggest inhibition may be more relevant for spelling compared to reading skills in children with ADHD. However, more research is needed to confirm this pattern.

Attention and Literacy

Surprisingly, only one study in the review investigated connections between attention and literacy in children with ADHD. This study found small-to-moderate relationships between a measure of executive attention (the ability to focus on relevant information) and three reading skills:

• Basic reading
• Word reading efficiency
• Reading comprehension

While these results are interesting, the review authors note that the statistical significance of these relationships is unclear based on the confidence intervals. Clearly, more research is needed to understand how attention relates to literacy performance in this population.

Conclusions

• Working memory shows the most consistent associations with literacy skills in children with ADHD. Interventions targeting working memory may help support literacy development.
• Other cognitive skills like processing speed, inhibition, and attention have less clear relationships with literacy. More high-quality research is needed in these areas.
• Different cognitive skills may relate differently to various literacy components (e.g. reading vs. spelling). A nuanced understanding of these relationships could help in developing targeted interventions.

This review highlights the complex connections between cognition and literacy in children with ADHD. While working memory emerges as particularly important, other cognitive skills also play a role. Future research should continue to examine these relationships to inform educational strategies for this population.