Impact of Dynamic Assessment on ADHD Learners’ Knowledge of L2 Vocabulary and Working Memory: A Case Study

Abstract

Within the field of second language learning, the need to provide equal access to L2 education has directed modern educators’ attention to the potentials of Dynamic Assessment (DA) for students with learning disabilities. The purpose of the present single case study was to explore the effects of interactionist DA on ADHD L2 learners’ knowledge of vocabulary and working memory capacity. A 13-year-old female EFL learner with the combined type of ADHD voluntarily participated in this study as an elementary student. During each session, a few new vocabulary items were taught through providing mediations relying on a regulatory scale from the most implicit to the most explicit emerging from the interactions between the mediator and the learner. The microgenetic analysis of DA protocols led to the development of an inventory of mediations consisting of different forms of implicit and explicit prompts. The results of the study demonstrated that DA could contribute to the learner’s vocabulary knowledge with a number of fluctuations in some DA sessions, while it did not improve her working memory capacity. The findings of this study provide further insight into teachers’ perception of how ADHD learners can learn an L2 and, at the same time, call for policy makers’ and materials developers’ greater attention to the progressive mediations required to help ADHD learners develop a higher level of self-regulation functioning through dialogic and social interactions.

Keywords

• attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd)
• dynamic assessment (da)
• l2 learner
• vocabulary
• working memory