Emotion recognition of children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder as well as other's people's mental states' representative performance according to theory of mind

BACKGROUND: It has been shown through studies that there are problems in 'Mind Theory', which is known as the ability to attribute to the mental state of other people, of autistic spectrum and schizophrenia patients. Even though there are only a limited amount of studies, it is known that there might be problems of theory of mind in people who have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The goal of this study is to analyze the ability to represent the recognition of their own and other people's mental states in children and adults with ADHD. In the evaluation, the performances of children with ADHD have been taken into consideration in view of mind reading through the eyes, understanding of metaphors and irony, picture and blunder making comprehension, and primary and secondary false belief missions. METHOD: 30 children and teen-agers between the ages of 7-15 followed at the Balıklı Rum Hospital for attention deficit disorder were used for this study. As a control group 30 children and teenagers between the ages of 7-15 of the same gender were paired with the patient group. The GAOT (Mind Reading Test through the eyes) and Dokuz Eylül Mind Theory Evaluation scale were given to the participants of the study. The GAOT scale is a cognitive empathy test that measure mentalization skills. The Dokuz Eylül mind theory scale is a test that evaluates people's empathy, irony and ability to understand metaphors. RESULTS: According to the GAOT results the performances of the children with ADHD in recognizing the senses through the eyes are significantly lower than the control group (t=-12368, df=58, p<0,000). The results of DEZTÖ showed that there is a significant difference in performance of theory of mind between ADHD children and the control group (t=-9,957, df=58, p<0,000). CONCLUSION: Statistical findings obtained during the study show that children with ADHD have a significantly much lower ability to represent the mental skills of their own and other people with respect to children with no attention deficit disorder. The results obtained prove that the performances of children with ADHD is significantly lower than that of children with no ADHD problem and shows that the mind theory can be applied not only in autism or schizophrenia but also in attention deficit disorders.