The Effect of Focus Strategies on ADHD Students' English Vocabulary Learning in Junior High School

Abstract

"Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common neurobehavioral disorder of childhood. ADHD is also among the most prevalent chronic health conditions affecting school-aged children"(American Academy of Pediatrics, 2000). Too many young girls are not getting the help they need because of hidden symptoms and late diagnosis. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of focus strategies on vocabulary learning of ADHD students at two junior high schools. To this end, eight female ADHD and eight normal students from two public schools were assigned to the both control group and the experimental one. The quantitative data was gathered from each student and was analyzed through 2-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) in a factorial arrangement with two repetitions. An orthogonal test was used to compare the strategies that were used in the control group (word list) and the experimental group (key word method, concentration, making sentences and fold overs). The instrument of this study contained a questionnaire sent to the parents and English teachers, an interview with a psychologist, a pre-test and a post-test. The results indicated that the four focus strategies in the experimental group increased the vocabulary learning in ADHD students for the short term retention and this increase was significant in the first focus strategy (key word method) and mostly the last one (fold overs) in the normal and ADHD students. The mean scores of control group were lower than the treatment group both in the normal and ADHD students. The results of delayed post-test revealed that although focus strategies improved the scores of the normal students compared to the ADHD students, this difference was not significant.