Determining the Effect of Sensory Diet on the Symptoms of Elementary School Students with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

One of the main problems of children with Attention–Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a defect in sensory processing. Sensory processing disorder is presented as two extreme behavioral patterns, sensory search and sensory avoidance, followed by problems with attention and behavior management. Among the effective treatments for sensory processing problems is sensory integration, which increases children's performance in sensory–motor and self–regulatory functions, followed by an increase in the nervous system's arousal to balance attention to task, control impulses, and increase failure tolerance. Sensory diet provides and maintains essential emotions. A sensory diet is based on the theory that functional abilities can be improved by using controlled sensory inputs. Sensory diet is one of the sensory–based interventions that is administered explicitly in a person's daily planning and is based on the theory that controlled sensory inputs can improve functional abilities such as attention, arousal, and responses that result in adaptation. This study aimed to determine the effect of sensory diet on the symptoms of primary school students with ADHD.

his research is a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The study's statistical population included all students with ADHD aged 6 to 12 years referred to Hasti, Bahar, and Masir Sabz treatment clinics in Tehran City, Iran, in 2020. The study sample was 30 eligible volunteer students selected by the available sampling method who were randomly divided into two groups of intervention and control. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–IV( Wechsler, 2003) was used to measure the intelligence level of the students. We used the Sensory Profile Questionnaire (Dunn, 1999) to assess the state of sensory processing and Conners Parent Rating Scale– Revised: Short Form (Connors, 1997) to assess the ADHD situation in students. The inclusion criteria were diagnosis of ADHD by a child psychiatrist, lack of mental disability based on children's Wechsler test, scoring 38–141 on the Sensory Profile Questionnaire, no vision and hearing problems, and no epilepsy and seizures. The exclusion criterion was leaving the sensory diet program at every study stage. The intervention group received 12 sessions of the family–based sensory diet program, 3 sessions per week, and each session lasted 45 minutes. The program was based on the Wilbarger sensory protocol (2018), in addition to occupational therapy. The control group received only the usual occupational therapy programs. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent t test to compare the age and intelligence of the two groups and univariate analysis of covariance to measure the effectiveness of sensory diet) were performed in the SPSS software version 20 at a significance level of 0.05.

The results showed that the mean scores of the students in the intervention group significantly decreased in the attention deficit (p<0.001) and hyperactivity (p<0.001) variables in the posttest stage compared to the control group. Also, the effect of the family–based sensory diet program on the variables of attention deficit and hyperactivity in students was 0.589 and 0.673, respectively.

Based on the research findings, the implementation of a family–based sensory diet program is effective in reducing the symptoms of students with ADHD. Therefore, this program can be used as a new, practical, and accessible method to reduce the symptoms of these students.