The relationship between phonological awareness and word recognition ability in English and Chinese of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) students in Taiwan

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) may not be a major factor that impacts reading disability or learning disability. Parents and teachers agree that reading problems and behavioral problems are two common disorders in children's learning. Researchers have stated that phonological awareness was the best predictor in reading and spelling (Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer & Carter, 1974); however, some literature indicates that phonological awareness in learning language was important for children with ADHD (Riccio & Jemison, 1998). Several studies identified a relationship between phonological awareness and word recognition with first language and second language learners, particularly the second language learners whose backgrounds were non-alphabetic language such as Chinese speakers (Huang & Hanley, 1994).; The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between phonological awareness and word recognition ability in English and Chinese of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) students in Taiwan. Participants in the study consisted of thirty-four elementary school students between the ages of nine and twelve and in grades three to six. Participants were selected from a group of children who received a clinical diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at Chiayi Christian Hospital in Taiwan. Parents and teachers completed a behavior rating scales that measured the ADHD children's behavior problems both in school and at home.; Six tasks, both in Chinese and English, were administered with phonological awareness subtests for Initial Sound Detection, Final Sound Detection, Rhyme Task, Phoneme Deletion, Real Word Recognition and Pseudoword Recognition. The results indicated that only the Chinese final sound detection predicted the Chinese real word recognition ability and none of the Chinese subtests predicted the Chinese pseudoword recognition ability. The results also showed that only the English initial sound detection subtest predicted the English real word recognition ability and only the English final sound detection subtest predicted the English pseudoword recognition ability. The Chinese rhyme task was a prediction to determine the English pseudoword recognition and none of the Chinese phonological awareness subtests predicted the English real word recognition ability.; Findings revealed that ADHD students with more advanced phonological awareness skills in their native language (Chinese) performed significantly better in their foreign language (English). Moreover, ADHD children's phonological code and sound structure showed the interlanguage variations between two languages that reflected some specific difficulties in pronunciation.