Impact of Digital Cognitive Remedial Therapy (CRT) for Sustaining Attention Span Among Children with Mild Intellectual Disability (ID) to Develop Communication Skills

Abstract

The aim of the current study was to analyze the effectiveness of structured cognitive remedial Therapy (CRT) to sustain attention span among children with Mild Intellectual Disability (ID).  The Intellectual Disability is characterized by limitations in intellectual functioning and developmental delays among children. Every child with Intellectual Disability requires individual support as per the developmental needs such as learning problems, attention span and maintaining focus and CRT is the effective therapy to improve attention span and overall functioning. The single subject experimental study design has been employed in the current study. The children with the Mild intellectual Disability has been recruited from the special education schools and the data were collected from hospitals while confirming about their level of mild ID. The sample of N=20 children were recruited in the study. Demographic information and medical information form has been completed before implementing the intervention.  Pre and Post analysis has been conducted to check the effectiveness of the intervention among children aged 6 to 13 years with Mild Intellectual disability, Pakistan. The intervention has been implemented while using the Head APP Neurvitals application consisted on 30-40 sessions, with 3 sessions every week per children. The study indicated remarkable improvements in the sustaining attention span among children with mild Intellectual Disability as in the pre intervention scores are lesser (M=73.75: SD = 13.82) in comparison of the post intervention (M=93.95: SD = 5.88). These results suggest substantial improvement in sustained attention span and visual spatial focus as a result of the intervention. The results also indicated significant improvements, with a Tau-U effect size of 0.93 reflecting a strong intervention effect. The Digital Cognitive Remedial Therapy (CRT) showed significant improvement in sustaining attention span which further improves the overall functioning of the children with mild ID.