Determining the Effectiveness of Software-Based Neuropsychology on Impulsive Behaviors of Students with Specific Learning Disorders

Specific learning disorder is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood that has severely affected the lives of many children around the world. There is growing evidence that a problem particularly associated with learning disabilities is impulsive behaviors, which are the basis of many disorders, including learning disabilities. Most children with learning disorders have issues with neuropsychological skills and cognitive skills; therefore, it seems that focusing on the problem can reduce the impulsive behaviors of these children. One of these treatment methods focused on neuropsychology is software–based neuropsychology. What is evident is that the above program has not been used in the impulsive behaviors of students with special learning disorders. Therefore, the present research was conducted to determine the effectiveness of software–based neuropsychology on the impulsive behaviors of students with specific learning disorders.

This research method was quasi–experimental with a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The statistical population of the research included all female students with learning disabilities in the elementary schools of Ardabil City, Iran, in the academic year 2022–2023. Of whom, 30 volunteers were recruited by available sampling after meeting the inclusion criteria. They were randomly assigned to two groups of 15 students (experimental and control). The tools used in this research were the Colorado Learning Difficulties Questionnaire (Willcutt et al., 2011) and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale–11 (Patton et al., 1995). The software–based neuropsychology rehabilitation program was implemented by Sound Smart educational software during 10 sessions of 90 minutes only for the experimental group. The obtained data was analyzed using SPSS27 software at two levels of descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (univariate covariance analysis). The significance level of statistical tests was considered 0.05.

The results showed that the effect of software–based neuropsychology on reducing the impulsive behaviors of the experimental group was significant after removing the pretest effect (p<0.001). About %44.6 of the changes in impulsive behaviors in the posttest phase were explained by receiving software–based neuropsychology.

Based on the findings of the current research, with software–based neuropsychology, impulsive behaviors are reduced in students with learning disabilities. Therefore, it is recommended that this program be used in schools and specialized clinics for exceptional children.