Research on reading development has focused on the linguistic, cognitive, and recently, metacognitive skills children must master in order to learn to read. Less focus has been devoted to how the text itself, namely the perceptual features of the words, affects children’s learning and comprehension. In this study, we manipulated perceptual properties of text by presenting reading passages in different font sizes, line lengths, and line spacing to 100 children in the second and fifth grades. For second graders (Experiment 1), decreasing font size, as well as increasing line length, yielded significantly lower comprehension scores. Line spacing had no effect on performance. For fifth graders (Experiment 2), decreasing font size yielded higher comprehension scores, yet there were no effects for line length and line spacing. Results are discussed within a "desirable difficulty" approach to reading development.

Objective: Previous research in adults with ADHD showed high rates of obesity and unhealthy food choices. There is evidence that contextual cues, for example, advertisements, influence food choices. This study assessed the sensitivity of university students with ADHD to advertised food. Method: University students ( N = 457) with and without ADHD participated in a cafeteria field experiment. Food choices were examined in periods of advertising either healthy or unhealthy sandwiches. Results: Students with ADHD (a) chose less healthy food items, (b) were more influenced by advertising, (c) showed the same overall healthy food choices as controls when exposed to healthy advertising. Conclusion: Students with ADHD chose unhealthier foods at the cafeteria but were also more influenced by advertising. Healthy food advertisements raised their healthy food choices. As this population has strong association with unhealthy dietary patterns, it is important to investigate the influence of food cues on their eating habits.

This study aimed to examine whether adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in students is associated with overeating or with unhealthy food choices. Sixty university students with and without ADHD, aged 20 to 30 years, completed the Food Frequency Questionnaire and reported their height and weight. Students with ADHD had a higher body mass index compared with students without ADHD. Although participants in both groups consumed similar amounts of servings, calories, and nutrients, students with ADHD reported lower healthy/unhealthy food consumption ratio. These findings suggest that ADHD in students is not associated with general overeating, but with a biased proportion of unhealthy versus healthy food consumption.

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have unhealthy eating habits, associated with overweight/obesity. We explored whether they present with different food-related benefit/risk perceptions, compared to those without ADHD. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> One hundred five university students with (<i>n</i> = 36) and without (<i>n</i> = 69) ADHD, aged 22–30, participated in the study. They rated the level of frequency and likelihood of food consumption, as well as the perceived attractiveness, convenience, and risk of 32 healthy and unhealthy food items. <b><i>Results:</i></b> The findings revealed significantly lower healthy/unhealthy food frequency consumption ratios for the ADHD group compared with the non-ADHD one but no differences in the ratios of estimated likelihood of food consumption and perceptions (attractiveness, convenience, and risk). <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> The results of this study demonstrated a discrepancy between the eating behavior (more unhealthy eating patterns in adults with ADHD compared with controls) and their food-related perceptions (same perceptions regarding the benefit and risk of foods in both groups).

No abstract