Sensible sentences: making sense of sentence completion by adolescents with learning disorders and ADHD.

Adolescents referred for a diagnostic evaluation of learning disorders
(LD) and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) were
assessed with the Dutch version of the Sentence Completion Test for
Youth (SCT-Y)(Westenberg et al., 2004). The SCT-Y reflects the level
of ego development of children and adolescents and is a measure of
psychosocial maturity. This preliminary study was aimed to look at the
characteristics of ego development in a clinical group of adolescents
with LD and/or ADHD. This clinical group showed an increase in ego
maturity with age, although at a slower rate then expected. Delay in ego
development was moderate to large for adolescents with LD and for the
co-morbid group (ADHD+LD). In contrast to this finding, the individuals
with ADHD, but without a co-morbid LD, functioned at the expected ego
level. In this sample, there appeared to be a marked difference in age
of onset of significant academic deficits, between the adolescents with
ADHD and the other diagnostic groups. This finding gave rise to the
idea that the onset of severe deficits at school is related to a delay or
stagnation in the normal progress of ego development. An early onset
of academic problems, at primary school age, will lead to a halt in ego
development at an early stage, which leads to a still noticeable delay in
adolescence. If an adolescent begins to fail in school, the individual's
ego development took a normal course up until then and is supposed to
be modal for adolescence.