[Textual pragmatics in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: argument]

Clinical linguistics involves a study of linguistic deficits which focuses on a series of aspects that range from strictly formal, grammatical points to the effective and contextualised use of language. Thus, it is also inevitably concerned with the cognitive, i.e. mental, correlate of such language use, whose basic textual dimensions are narration and argument.

To describe the argumentative skills in adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to examine their relationship with academic achievement and sociability.

We analysed 79 argumentative texts written by adolescents with ADHD, using a methodology from cognitive linguistics and from theories of argumentation with a dialogical foundation.

Adolescents with ADHD provided a greater number of arguments than those in the control group, but with a higher predominance of emotional and negative sanction strategies compared with a greater use of fallacious or circular arguments in those in the control group; the difference between the use of rational arguments in the two groups is not significant.