The Effectiveness of Play Therapy on Visual Short-Term Memory and Cognitive Flexibility in Children with Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder

Attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common psychiatric disorders in childhood that accounts for the highest number of children psychologists and pediatric psychiatrists. Considering the importance of effective intervention in this field, the aim of present study was to determine the effectiveness of play therapy on visual short-term memory and cognitive flexibility in children with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. This methodology is a quasi-experimental study with pre-test-post-test design with experimental and control group. The statistical population included all children with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder referring to psychiatric centers of Rasht in 2016 that were under medical treatment, of among them 30 children were selected by available sampling method and according to the conditions of entering the research and assigned in the experimental and control groups. To collect the data, attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder rating scale American Psychiatric Association (2013), Stroop Test (1935), and Andréry (1942) were used. For experimental group, play therapy program was executed at 10 weekly sessions in 75 minutes whereas control group did not receive any training. The results of covariance analysis showed that play-therapy caused improvement in cognitive flexibility and short-term visual memory in children with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder in the post-test in the experimental group (p<0/01). Play therapy provides an objective and tangible training experience for children through an appropriate method of children's development, and this practical exercise directly contributes to improving the cognitive flexibility and visual short-term memory of this children.