Yoga for Children With Attention Problems, Article Review Example

The purpose of this study is to determine whether yoga is a sufficient intervention for treating primary-grade with attention problems. This study is needed to bridge a gap in the knowledge of effective interventions for children with attention problems. While some psychologists claim that medicine is a useful treatment, others believe that more holistic approaches are plausible. Yoga is a good candidate for intervention because it involves the coordination of body movements with breathing that contributes to increase in overall circulation, decrease in tension, and an improvement in concentration.

A total of ten children in first through third grade volunteered for this experiment. They were recruited by a school psychologist who contacted their parents to obtain permission for participation. These students were not formally diagnosed with ADHD but had been noted as having attention difficulty by their teachers. The dependent variable that was measured in this test is “time on task”, which is defined as the percentage of intervals where students had eye contact with the teacher or performed assigned work. The independent variable was yoga, which was specifically defined by participation in the “Yoga Fitness for Kids” program.

Examination of the participants included baseline, intervention, and follow-up measurements that involved a recording of “time on task” for comparing attention before and after the intervention. The effect size of this intervention appeared to be significant, but comparison to peer “time on task” as controls indicated that the participants had relatively similar “time on task” across the three phases of the intervention. Therefore, the results were not reliable. While this experiment did not demonstrate efficacy, it may if children with ADHD are given yoga for a longer period of time and their level of attention before and after the intervention is compared with that of children without ADHD. Therefore, in my field exercise may be a useful method to ensure that children pay attention in the classroom, but these results do not indicate that this is certain.

References

Peck HL, Kehle TJ, Bray MA, Theodore LA. (2005). Yoga as an Intervention for Children with Attention Problems. School Psychology Review, 34(3): 415-424.