Students with ADHD: The impact of Information and Communication Technologies and their mothers’ occupational status on their writing skills

Abstract

Asimina Riga and Georgia Andreou

The aim of the present study was to investigate to what extent Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) improve the writing skills of secondary school students identified with Attention Deficit. Complementarily, another basic objective of the study is to shed light on whether and how seriously maternal employment is associated with children’s academic performance. The sampl e in this study consisted of 66 (N=66) students who were assessed for attention ability. Student assessment was based on a combination of tools, namely a demographic questionnaire, a questionnaire for teachers following the Greek Evaluation Scale (ADHD), the Stroop Test and the Trail Making Test. The students were then divided into two groups consisting of 32 and 34 students respectively and were taught the same subject matter, with one essential difference though; the first group by incorporating ICT’s tools while the second one without implementing them. Then, both groups were assessed on the ground of their ability to write essays. The results demonstrated that essay performance was higher in the ICT group than in the non-ICT group. Furthermore, the results of the study showed that ADHD students whose mother’s were civil servants, performed better than those whose mothers, belonged to a different working class. The importance of these research findings with specific reference to ICTs lies in the fact that it may contribute to reshaping the teaching and learning of students with ADHD and provides strategic opportunities to develop quality learning opportunities within inclusive classrooms. Additionally, the second strand of this paper concludes to associations of mothers’ profession with their children academic performance which are likely to result in redefining the importance of maternal social status.