RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that can significantly impact a child's daily life and academic performance. Some studies have noted challenges in social cognition among children with ADHD, specifically in aspects like emotion perception and processing, empathy, Theory of Mind, and pragmatics. One of the lesser-explored aspects of ADHD is its potential impact on higher-level language skills, such as irony understanding. Our goal in this study was to compare irony comprehension in two groups: schoolchildren with normal development and schoolchildren with ADHD. METHODS: We performed a comparative cross-sectional study on a total of 35 children aged between 6 and 12 years: 17 with ADHD and 18 not neurodevelopmentally impaired. Irony comprehension was evaluated using an assessment method validated for the Portuguese population: Turtle on the Island - Battery of Assessment of Executive Functions in Children (TI-BAFEC). We also applied the EACE (Emotional Awareness and Coping in Children) scale. It is the Portuguese adaptation of the Assessment of Children's Emotion Skills and assesses children's emotional knowledge. RESULTS: We obtained two comparable groups concerning sociodemographic data. The analysis of the data, using the Mann-Whitney U Test, showed that in all parameters, the control group consistently exhibited superior performance compared to the ADHD group. However, only TI-BAFEC (p = 0.005) and emotional behavior (p = 0.007) showed a significant statistical variance between the two groups. CONCLUSION: This article shows that children with ADHD encounter challenges in grasping irony. However, the underlying cognitive processes contributing to these difficulties warrant further investigation.
RESUMO
INTRODUCTION: The admission and stay in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit represents an anxious experience to parents, because of their frustrated expectations and the confrontation with the possibility of newborn's death. The aims of this study were to assess how mothers cope with physical characteristics of the context, with treatments and with the loss of the idealized parental role; to assess how mothers evaluate the medical and nurse staff performance; and to assess the degree of satisfaction with the Service. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A sample of 100 mothers, whose newborns were admitted at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit,was asked to fulfil a specific survey. RESULTS: In a general way, according to the mean of all stress subscales, the total experienced stress was moderate. Significant associations or differences between scholarity and stress were not found, as well as with mother's age. The loss of parental role was the most anxious factor for mothers. The satisfaction with medical team was inversely related to stress. Mothers were satisfied with nurse team performance. CONCLUSION: The loss of the idealized parental role is the most anxious experience for the mothers. The observed results highlight the need for the continuous change of the neonatal unit in a more warming environment for the mothers and their newborns.
