The Effectiveness of Paaryaad Perceptual-Motor Exercises on Response Inhibition, Cognitive Flexibility and Time Reproduction in Children with Developmental Coordination

Recently, the use of new therapeutic approaches to improve the executive functions of children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) has attracted the attention of researchers. The aim of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of paaryaad exercises on response inhibition, cognitive flexibility and time reproduction in 8-12-year-old children with DCD.

The current research was a semi-experimental type with a pre-test-post-test design. The statistical population of the research was all the male students aged 8 to 12 years old in Maroodasht city schools in 2018, 30 of whom were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. The intervention included perceptual-motor paaryaad exercises for 20 thirty-minute sessions at the gym. Data were collected using GO/NOGO and Stroop software, and time reproduction. Data analysis was done using repeated measure analysis of variance and Wilcoxon test in SPSS 24 software.

The results of the research showed that the scores of the experimental group regarding the variables of cognitive flexibility and response inhibition increased and the scores of time reproduction decreased. However, the scores of the control group did not change in the studied variables. Moreover, the findings of the research showed that Paaryaad perceptual motor exercises have a significant effect on response inhibition and time reproduction (p<0/005), but did not have a significant effect on the cognitive flexibility component (p<0/005).

Considering the effectiveness of Paaryaad exercises on response inhibition and time reproduction of children with DCD, it is suggested that these exercises be used as a suitable intervention method to improve some executive functions.