Abstract
Mindfulness-oriented meditation (MOM) is a self-regulatory training used for attentional and behavioral problems. With its focus on attention, MOM is a promising form of training that is gaining empirical support as a complementary or alternative intervention for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In this study, we tested the preliminary efficacy of MOM training in children with ADHD, by comparing its efficacy with an active control condition (Emotion Education Program, EEP). Twenty-five children with ADHD aged 7–11 years participated in MOM training (n = 15) or EEP (n = 10) 3 times per week for 8 weeks. Neuropsychological and academic measures and behavioral, emotional, and mindfulness ratings were collected before and after the two programs. On average, MOM training had positive effects on neuropsychological measures, as evidenced by a significant mean improvement in all outcome measures after training. Moreover, positive effects on ADHD symptoms were found only in the MOM group. Although they are preliminary, our results documented that MOM training promotes changes in neuropsychological measures and in certain behavioral symptoms, suggesting it as a promising tool for ameliorating cognitive and clinical manifestations of ADHD.
Highlights
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common developmental disorders, with high persistence into adulthood
Concerning Neuropsychological Measures, a repeated measures ANOVA was conducted on the five neuropsychological measures as the dependent variables (CPT-II HRT, Continuous Performance Test-II (CPT-II) HRT-SD, STROOP IES, Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT), and N-BACK II) with Group (MOM G, Emotion Education Program group (EEP G)) and Time (T0, T1) as the independent variables
Mindfulness-oriented meditation (MOM) training had positive effects, with a large effect size, on neuropsychological measures (Group × Time effect), as evidenced by the average responses on neuropsychological measures improving significantly at T1 compared with T0 in the MOM group (MOM G) but not in the EEP G
Summary
Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common developmental disorders, with high persistence into adulthood. Of children [2] and 4% of adults show ADHD [3]. The main clinical features of ADHD are hyperactivity, having difficulty sustaining attention, inhibiting a prepotent response, and difficulty in holding goals and plans [4]. Many studies have highlighted deficits in executive functions as one of the main characteristics of ADHD, especially with regard to response inhibition, attention, and working memory [4,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. Children with ADHD continue to show significant symptoms of the disorder into adulthood and
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