Percepção dos pais sobre amizade em crianças típicas e com TDAH

Abstract

Scientific literature in Brazil has shown a growing body of studies about children with ADHD, with focus on either health or educational approaches. As broadly known, friendship promotes development, learning, and health. Parents' role are also recognized in the social life of children. Thus ADHD and friendship relations, in children with or without this disorder, keep deserving scientific attention and effort. This paper compared parents of children with and without ADHD about their perceptions on children's friendships. Parents and children's answers were also compared with the intention of evaluating the degree of agreement between parents and their children. Results aim at fostering new empirical studies that examine most intense and extensively friendship in children with ADHD, and also parents involvement on children's social life. Two main explanatory-hypotheses guided the interpretation of the results: parents unaware of children's social relationships, and ADHD children with a positive bias about their friendships. It was also considered a tendency that parents have to understand and perceive friendship from an adult point of view.