Overt planning behaviors during writing in school-age children with autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Autism and ADHD kids use outlines less, but only ADHD kids turn planning into better stories.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Zajic et al. (2020) watched kids write a story. They compared three groups: autism, ADHD, and typically-developing.
They counted every time a child touched the outline, reread the prompt, or said a plan out loud.
All kids were school-age and wrote the same story in the same quiet room.
What they found
Typical kids spent the most time using the outline. Autism and ADHD kids used it less.
Only the ADHD and typical groups linked their planning moves to better final stories.
Autism kids planned in their own way, but that planning did not raise their writing score.
How this fits with other research
Zajic et al. (2021) filmed the same trio again. They saw autism kids look at their draft less, matching the low outline use found here.
Rosello et al. (2022) reviewed 34 studies and say autism-plus-ADHD is a double hit. That fits: here both groups plan less and only the pure ADHD kids can turn planning into better writing.
Crisci et al. (2026) later showed half of each clinical group land in the same ‘social plus behavior’ profile. The shared profile may explain why both plan oddly, yet only ADHD still profits from that planning.
Why it matters
When you assess writing, watch what the child does before the pencil moves. Outline touches, prompt rereads, and self-talk are free data.
If you see odd planning but the story still flops, check for autism traits; extra structure or visual scaffolds may help more than prompting ‘plan harder.’ For ADHD kids, teach them to link each plan step to the final product—they can use it.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The planning behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) during writing remain overlooked. Targeted examination of planning behaviors may help to better understand their heterogeneous writing skills. AIMS: This study examined overt planning behaviors of three groups of school-age children (ASD, ADHD, and typically developing [TD]) during the planning stage of a standardized narrative writing assessment. Aims explored group differences in time spent planning, between- and within-group differences in overt planning behaviors, and relationships between planning behaviors and writing performance as well as age, cognitive skills, and diagnostic symptom severity. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: This study included 121 9-17-year-old children (60 ASD, 32 ADHD, and 29 TD). Video recordings captured overt planning behaviors during a two-minute prewriting planning stage. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Not all participants planned, but group membership overwhelmingly did not influence planning likelihood. Groups differed in time spent engaging with the outline (29 %-70 %), with the TD group spending the most time. Groups spent similar amounts of time looking away from the task (< 10 %) and looking at the task picture (20 %-33 %). The TD and ASD groups demonstrated more similar within-group-level differences in planning behavior s, while the ADHD group appeared more variable. The ADHD and TD groups but not the ASD group showed stronger associations between planning behaviors and writing performance. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Children with ASD and ADHD differed relative to each other and to TD peers in specific planning behaviors. Implications are discussed regarding instructional practices and needed future research to examine planning during writing in children with developmental disabilities.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2020 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2020.103631