Investigation of the relationship between executive function skills and narrative skills in school-age children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in children with language impairment. It is thought that language disorders seen in children with ADHD may be related to impairment in executive functions. The aim of this study is to describe the executive function skills and language and narrative skills of children with ADHD and compare them with TD (typically developing) children and to examine the relationship between executive functions and language and narrative skills. For this purpose, the CNSVS neurocognitive test battery was applied to a total of 65 participants, 30 with ADHD and 35 TD, between the ages of 8-12, to determine their executive function skills, and retelling was done through an illustrated story book named the Frog Where Are You? to evaluate their language and narrative skills. Retelling was done through an illustrated story book. Data were analyzed using independent samples t-test and Pearson correlation test to determine the relationship between executive function skills and language and narrative skills. As a result, it was concluded that children with ADHD performed significantly lower than TD children in all executive function areas, and in narrative skills, children with ADHD performed significantly lower than TD children in all components except internal state terms. In addition, a strong positive significant relationship was found between the neurocognition index, which shows the general neurocognitive status, and the total narrative score. It is thought that this study is important in terms of evaluating the executive function skills and narrative skills of children with ADHD together and will pave the way for similar studies aimed to be conducted in the future.