The effectiveness of training of executive functions on improving social skills and emotional processing in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

One of the problems of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is the lack of social skills and emotional processing. This research was conducted to determine the effectiveness of training of executive functions on improving social skills and emotional processing in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

The method of this research was semi-experimental and pre-test-post-test with a control group. The statistical population of this research included all children aged 7 to 12 with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder who had a file in Kerman city welfare in 2022. 30 people from the aforementioned community were selected as a sample using a simple sampling method and were randomly divided into two experimental (15 people) and control (15 people) groups. Gresham and Elliot's (1999) social skills questionnaires and Baker et al.'s (2007) emotional processing questionnaires were used to collect information. The experimental group underwent executive function training for 10 sessions of 60 minutes and the control group did not receive any training. The research data was analyzed using covariance.

The mean ± standard deviation of the experimental group in the post-test in the variable of social skills from 4.52±17.41 to 5.73±31.29 and in the variable of emotional processing from 6.17±21.45 to 39.66± It increased 7/54. The results showed that in the post-test phase, the average scores of social skills and emotional processing in the experimental group increased significantly compared to the control group (P<0.01).

Executive functions were effective in improving social skills and emotional processing. Therefore, this type of training can be used to reduce the problems of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.