Comparison of the Effectiveness of Attentive Behavior Self-Regulation Interventions with Motivational Behavior Self-Regulation Training on Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

One of the most common childhood disorders is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which can be caused by a lack of self-regulation. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of self-regulatory behavioral interventions with self-regulatory motivational behavior on reducing the ADHD symptoms in elementary school students.  

The present study was a pretest-posttest experiment with a control group. The statistical population included all children aged 7 to 12 years old with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder that referred to counseling and psychology centers in Tehran's District 5 in the academic year 2019-2020 and were receiving Ritalin medication. First, they were screened by the Pediatric Symptom Inventory (CSI-4). Then, 45 students with the highest level of ADHD were randomly selected and assigned to three groups (two experimental groups and one control group). Data were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance and Bonferroni posthoc test.

The results showed that the two experimental groups had a significant increase in post-test compared to the control group (p<0.001). In addition, there was no significant difference between the mean of ADHD group of self-regulatory behavioral interventions and the mean of ADHD group of self-regulatory motivational behavior. In other words, the effect of the two treatments in reducing ADHD is the same (p<0.01).

Based on the results, it can be concluded that training in motivational and behavioral self-regulatory processes can significantly help reduce the symptoms of ADHD in these children (p<0.01).