Comparison of the Effectiveness of Mindfulness Therapy, Neurofeedback and Therapy Based on SPARK Perceptual-Motor Exercises on the Difficulty of Emotion Regulation in Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood that affects a wide range of functions, including emotion regulation. This study aimed to compare and determine the effectiveness of mindfulness therapy, neurofeedback and therapy based on SPARK perceptual-motor exercises on emotion regulation in children with ADHD.

This study was a quasi-experimental research with control group design, including pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. The study population included all children with ADHD in Isfahan during April to September 2019, among them 60 were selected by purposive sampling and then randomly assigned to any of the four groups: mindfulness therapy, neurofeedback, therapy based on SPARK perceptual-motor exercises, and the control group. The experimental groups underwent the therapies for 10 weeks, while the control group received no intervention. To collect the data, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale of Bunford et al. (34) was used. The collected data were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA in SPSS.

The findings showed that in the post-test phase, there was a significant difference between the experimental groups and the control group (p<0.01). Comparing the groups, it was found that mindfulness intervention was more effective than neurofeedback (p <0.05), but no significant difference was observed between mindfulness therapy and SPARK (p> 0.05). Also, findings of the follow-up phase showed that the effectiveness endured in the mindfulness and SPARK groups (p<0.01) but the effect of neurofeedback decreased over time (p> 0.05).

Based on the results, it can be stated that mindfulness and the therapy based on SPARK perceptual-motor exercises reduce the difficulty in emotion regulation through increasing the clarity and acceptance of emotions and regulating the nervous connections respectively.