Developing and Investigating the Effect of a Positive Discipline Curriculum on Social Interest in Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Attention–Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neuro–developmental disorder, i.e., defined per the Statistical and Diagnostic Guidelines for Mental Disorders–Fifth Edition (DSM–5) with the symptoms of attention deficit, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Social interest is pivotal and defective in ADHD children; thus, improving it is positively correlated with positive psychological outcomes. Moreover, strengthening social interest reduces ADHD symptoms. Thus, the present study aimed to develop a curriculum of positive discipline and explore its effects on the relationship between children's social interest and ADHD.

This was a quasi–experimental study with pretest–posttest, one–month follow–up, and a control group design. The statistical population of the study included the parents of children aged 7–11 years with ADHD in Isfahan City, Iran, in the academic year of 2017–2018. To recruit the study sample, 30 parents were selected using the convenience sampling method from parents of children with ADHD and were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The combination of the groups is either the first group or the experimental group (positive discipline training program), consisting of 15 mothers; the second group (controls) included 15 mothers who received no intervention. The inclusion criteria included students in the age range of 7–11 years, having ADHD, and the lack of other neurodevelopmental disorders. The exclusion criteria also included the unwillingness of mothers to participate in the study and not to complete the training course. Moreover, the positive discipline training program was performed by a trained specialist, and the study subjects were not concurrently trained with other intervention packages. The research tool was the Diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Questionnaire (Hashemi–Malekshah et al., 2017) and Social Interest Scale (SIS; Alizadeh et al., 2015). Before initiating the training sessions, the SIS was completed as a pretest. Then, the Positive Discipline Program was provided in eight 90–minute sessions. At the end of the training and the follow–up stage, the questionnaires were re–administered. To analyze the obtained data, descriptive statistics, including mean and standard deviation as well as inferential statistics, including Repeated–Measures Analysis of Variance (RM–ANOVA) and its assumptions and Bonferroni post hoc test were implemented in SPSS. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05

The present research results suggested that the effect of group (p<0.05), time effect (p<0.05), and the effect of group and time (p<0.05) on responsibility–homework, communication with others–empathy, courage–confidence, and equal feeling versus inferiority–superiority were statistically significant. Findings also revealed a significant difference between pretest–posttest and pretest–follow–up of the mean scores of responsibility–homework (p=0.019, p=0.040, respectively), communication with people–empathy (p=0.011, p=0.030, respectively), courage–confidence (p<0.001, p<0.001, respectively), and equal feeling versus inferiority–superiority (p<0.001, p<0.001, respectively) in the experimental group; however, in the posttest–follow–up stage, no significant difference was detected on the mean scores of responsibility–homework (p=0.611), communication with others–empathy (p=0.201), courage–confidence (p=0.862), and equal feeling versus inferiority–superiority (p=0.177), indicating the stability of the effect of the intervention in the follow–up stage.

According to the current study results, a positive discipline training program positively affected social interest in children with ADHD. Thus, families and professionals in the field of children with ADHD are advised to use the mentioned program to improve the social interest of these children to greatly reduce the symptoms of this disorder.