Linguistic profile in children with a double diagnosis of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and developmental language disorder

Abstract

Recently, comorbidity and the number of double diagnosis cases of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and developmental language disorder (DLD) have increased. This study aimed to know the linguistic profile that the children of such cases present. Our sample included 24 participants between 6–11 years old, divided into three groups: ADHD; DLD; double diagnosis of ADHD and DLD. We administered the Celf-4 Language Test with the areas: core language, receptive language, expressive language, language content, language memory and working memory. Our results revealed that the children with double diagnosis performed better than individuals with DLD in Core Language, Expressive Language and Language Memory, but worse than the children with ADHD. These data demonstrate that the presence of DLD determines linguistic differences. The coexistence of ADHD does not predispose to having a different linguistic profile.