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Main Authors: Karacan, Baris, Songur, Irem Aktar, Ozaslan, Ahmet, Iseri, Elvan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.02509
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author Karacan, Baris
Songur, Irem Aktar
Ozaslan, Ahmet
Iseri, Elvan
author_facet Karacan, Baris
Songur, Irem Aktar
Ozaslan, Ahmet
Iseri, Elvan
contents Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood, and its diagnosis relies on assessments combining clinician judgment with standardized rating scales and reports from parents and teachers. While structured instruments such as the Conners' Teacher Rating Scale-Revised Short Form (CTRS-R:S) quantify ADHD-related behaviors, teachers also provide open-ended narratives that may contain complementary signals not captured by structured assessments. However, it remains unclear to what extent teacher narratives encode signals overlooked by rating scales. In this study, we analyze de-identified Turkish teacher evaluation forms collected during clinical ADHD assessments, including both CTRS-R:S scores and open-ended teacher narratives. We compare predictive signals from structured scores and narrative text and identify cases where structured assessments fail to clearly distinguish ADHD from non-ADHD students while narrative-based models capture distinct behavioral patterns. Notably, these cases show minimal overlap with those missed by the narrative model, suggesting that structured and narrative information encode complementary signals. To interpret these differences, we apply a large language model (LLM)-assisted theme discovery pipeline that reveals distinct attention, behavioral, and family-related patterns, highlighting the potential of natural language processing (NLP) to uncover clinically relevant signals from teacher narratives and to complement traditional ADHD screening tools.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2606_02509
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle When Rating Scales Fall Short: LLM-Assisted Discovery of ADHD Signals in Turkish Teacher Narratives
Karacan, Baris
Songur, Irem Aktar
Ozaslan, Ahmet
Iseri, Elvan
Computation and Language
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood, and its diagnosis relies on assessments combining clinician judgment with standardized rating scales and reports from parents and teachers. While structured instruments such as the Conners' Teacher Rating Scale-Revised Short Form (CTRS-R:S) quantify ADHD-related behaviors, teachers also provide open-ended narratives that may contain complementary signals not captured by structured assessments. However, it remains unclear to what extent teacher narratives encode signals overlooked by rating scales. In this study, we analyze de-identified Turkish teacher evaluation forms collected during clinical ADHD assessments, including both CTRS-R:S scores and open-ended teacher narratives. We compare predictive signals from structured scores and narrative text and identify cases where structured assessments fail to clearly distinguish ADHD from non-ADHD students while narrative-based models capture distinct behavioral patterns. Notably, these cases show minimal overlap with those missed by the narrative model, suggesting that structured and narrative information encode complementary signals. To interpret these differences, we apply a large language model (LLM)-assisted theme discovery pipeline that reveals distinct attention, behavioral, and family-related patterns, highlighting the potential of natural language processing (NLP) to uncover clinically relevant signals from teacher narratives and to complement traditional ADHD screening tools.
title When Rating Scales Fall Short: LLM-Assisted Discovery of ADHD Signals in Turkish Teacher Narratives
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.02509