The Effect of Game Play Intervention on Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

Play helps children not only to express themselves, but also gives them opportunity to resolve their problems. The present research aims to examine the effect of play intervention (game play) on ADHD boys within the age range of 6-12 years. Total 15 participants, including children diagnosed with ADHD children without any active treatment (n=5), ADHD children under medication (n=5) and ADHD children in a waiting list control group to receive intervention later (n=5) were chosen for the research. The pre-post intervention measures were selected and those were- The Connors 3 Short form (Parent report) and Stroop test. The game that had been chosen for play interventions were ‘Bubble Breath’ and ‘Beat the Clock’. The co-morbid disorders were screened out by administering Child Symptom Inventory (CSI) to the parents of ADHD children in all the three groups. The results were calculated in two parts, first, descriptive statistics (Median and Quartile Deviation) and secondly, three types of non-parametric tests. For comparison among pre-post intervention scores of selected measures for each group, Wilcoxin Signed Rank Test was computed. For comparison between three groups of ADHD children, Kruskal-Wallis was computed and subsequently Mann-Whitney U-test was computed where x2 value appeared significant. The results of the present research suggested that play intervention was effective in reducing the one of the core symptoms of ADHD children, i.e., ‘Inattention’ and might also be used as a therapeutic or complementary method of treatment in combination with other treatment modalities.