Application of conners rating scale on school with underachievement academic

Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most frequent behavioral disorders diagnosed in childhood, causing damage to the child's neurocognitive development.

Objective: The aim of this study was to apply the Conners Rating Scale- Francisco Rosa Neto's Brazilian Version on schoolchildren with academic underachievement.

Methods: Application of the Conners Rating Scale filled by psychologist during evaluation in academic underachievement outpatient clinic from a university hospital, to assess the prevalence of ADHD and its subtypes in the context of academic failure, ranging grade from preschool to ninth grade.

Results: The questionnaire was applied to 34 children, 20 males and 14 females, between 6 and 13 years. The majority (71.4% girls, 50% boys) presented attention deficit. Similarly, hyperactivity and inattention (64.2% girls, 45% boys), hyperactivity/impulsivity (21.4% girls, 20% boys), conduct disorder (CT) (35.7% girls, 35% boys) and overall ADHD (42.8% girls, 30% boys) were more prevalent in girls. The mean age among students with attention deficit was 9.05 years; with hyperactivity/impulsivity, 9.21 years; with hyperactivity and inattention, 8.81 years; with CT, 8 years; and with predominance of global ADHD was 8.58 years. No relation between obesity and ADHD was observed in the present study. 50% of obese children did not score for any of the behavioral disorders. In addition, 57.1% of the girls and 55% of the boys were eutrophic.

Conclusions: The relation with academic impairment was evidenced by the high prevalence of attention deficit symptoms alone, diverging from the literature, in which the predominance is of the combined type. Regarding gender, the result – higher absolute number of boys and higher prevalence of CT in females – differed from the literature data. However, there was agreement in the predominance of inattention, which was more frequent in females. There was little variation in average age for each sex concerning specific age for each learning disorder. No relationship was found between obesity and ADHD.

 

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No conflict of interest has been declared by the author(s).

Publication History

Article published online:
18 September 2023