Effectiveness of medication, neurofeedback and combination therapy on memory space of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

The study aim was to determine the efficacy of drug therapy in comparison with Neurological Feedback and combination therapy on the memory of children with attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The method was quasi-experimental with control group and pre-test, post-test, and three month follow-up. Statistical population included of 118 children aged 6 to 11 years with impaired ADHD that were referred to the Shahed and Isargar Center in South East of Tehran in winter of year 1396. From this population, 80 children who received low scores in 4th edition of Wechsler Intelligence Memory Test, 2003 and had criteria for entering the research were selected and randomly divided into three experimental and one control groups. The experimental groups underwent medication therapy with Ritalin tablets, Lubar’s (2013) Neurological Feedback Program, and combination therapy in 25 sessions of 40 minutes twice a week. The results showed that medication therapy (F= 23.51, P= 0.001), Neurological Feedback (F= 30.20, P= 0.001) and combination therapy (F=42, P= 0.001) have a significant effect on the increment of the memory of children with ADHD. However comparisons of treatments showed that combination therapy had a greater effect the than the other two treatments, and this effect remained stable for all three treatments at the follow up period. Since combination therapy leads to increased memory of the children with ADHD and on the other hand, it includes both drug therapy and neurological feedback; hence, it can be considered as a more effective treatment than other treatments in increasing the memory of children with ADHD.