Comparison of the Effectiveness of Two Intervention Methods of Neurofeedback Training (NFT) and the Movement Program on the Handwriting Performance of 9-11 Years Old Children with Dysgraphia

Learning disorders, especially dysgraphia, are among the student's educational disabilities. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two intervention methods of neurofeedback training and the movement program on the handwriting performance of 9-11 years old children with dysgraphia.
This was a quasi-experimental comparative study with a
pretest-posttest design. Thirty right-handed boy students aged 9 to 11 years old were selected from elementary and middle schools (district 4) in Karaj, based on the dysgraphia Fallahchai test. Participants were randomly divided into three groups each included 10 subjects. The movement program group did activities with emphasis on visual-motor coordination, fine motor control, visual-motor integrity, and eye-hand coordination 3 sessions per week, for 4 weeks (total of twelve sessions). The neurofeedback group did a training protocol (decreasing beta wave and increasing alpha wave at C3 zone) in 4 weeks, 3 sessions per week each session for 20 minutes. The control group did not any training intervention.
The data analysis showed that there were significant differences between two groups of intervention and the control group. The two experimental groups had a significant improvement compared to the control group. Also, the results showed that the selected movement program is more effective than neurofeedback training intervention.
Overall, the selected movement program was more effective than the neurofeedback training and control group. Therefore, it is suggested that the movement program intervention should be used to improve the handwriting performance of students with poor handwritten quality.