EPA-0401 – The emotional and behavioral regulation among two groups of ADHD children: an experience

Abstract

The recent research (Barkley, 1997) showed a significant relation between ADHD and difficulties in emotional regulation among primary school children. During adolescence these problems can lead to risk behaviors, such as substance abuse till increasing aggressive behaviors and even a conduct disorder (Ghanizadeh et al., 2008). This experience provides to realize a intervention about emotional and behavior regulation on two groups of primary school children between 8 and 11 years old (N 1 =4; N 2 =5) with a ADHD diagnosis. Our intervention encloses an initial assessment about the children's neuropsychological performance, a course that deals with the emotional and behavioral regulation, based on cognitive-behavioral techniques, and a final assessment to evaluate the outcomes. The effectiveness of this kind of intervention is shown by lots of researches (Kendall, 1992); so we expect that it will increase cooperation among the groups, improve the ability of emotional regulation, in particular the system frustration/aggression, and allow a better regulation of impulsive behaviors.