Solutions for improving the symptomatology of the child with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Bucharest, Romania
Email: linca.florentina@gmail.com
Attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common developmental disorders experienced in childhood and can persist into adulthood. The disorder has an early onset and is characterized by a combination of overactive, poorly modulated behavior with marked inattention. In the long term it can impair academic performance, vocational success and social‐emotional development. On the other hand, child with ADHD has been included among those with special support needs and special educational needs in the USA since 1990. In this case, the intervention program was built for those students in the school environment. The objective of this study is to find the effectiveness of a problem solving intervention program on the frequency of symptoms of hyperactivity and attention deficit, visuomotor precision, visuomotor integration (which includes visuospatial abilities, such as estimating distances between objects, line orientation, angularity, and fine motor coordination) and emotional regulation of students with ADHD. Also, this study aimed to verify if emotional regulation had an effect on two relationships between: problem solving ability and visuomotor integration of students with ADHD, problem solving ability and visuomotor precision of students with ADHD. A problem solving intervention program consisting of 120 activities was carried out for 6 months with 30 elementary school students (grades 0-4) diagnosed with ADHD and integrated in normal school. TRS-P was used to evaluate changes in the frequency of symptoms of hyperactivity and attention deficit in students with ADHD, an image system was developed for this study to identify difficulties of emotional regulation and NEPSY was used to evaluate changes in the neuropsychological functioning in three domains: Attention/Executive functioning, Visuospatial and Sensorimotor. The program has been identified to have a positive effect on the frequency of symptoms of hyperactivity and attention deficit, visuomotor precision, visuomotor integration (which includes visuospatial abilities, such as estimating distances between objects, line orientation, angularity, and fine motor coordination) and emotional regulation of students with ADHD. Also, in this study it was demonstrated emotional regulation had an effect on two relationships between: problem solving ability and visuomotor integration of students with ADHD, problem solving ability and visuomotor precision of students with ADHD. The problem solving intervention program designed in this research can be utilized in the classroom.