Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Children and Adults (Research Paper Sample)

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Children and Adults
Introduction
The disease known as ‘ADHD’ (Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) is a developmental disorders that appears in childhood and may endure even to adulthood. The disease has different characteristics in children and adult sufferers. Children who are afflicted with ADHD tend to be unable to focus on one thing for an extended period of time. Their care-givers immediately notice that they cannot seem to observe simple directions, and become easily disinterested with different responsibilities, or tasks. Children with ADHD are also impulsive, and cannot remain in one position for extended periods of time. They make not take time to reflect on the consequences of their actions before they perform them. This basically means that a child’s abilities in the home and school will be impaired.
Due to the fact that children with ADHD tend to have short attentions spans, their academic performance tends to be underwhelming, while their social life is wanting. Even their performance in vocational disciplines may be subject to constant change due to their inability to focus on one thing to its conclusion. Adults who are victims of ADHD tend to have problems in functions such as goal-setting, or time management. Their work-based performance could suffer due to their lack of organizational skills, as well as inability to sustain mutually supportive relationships with their co-workers.
Objectives
The objective of this exploratory research was to examine the likelihood that transcendental meditation is an effective method that can be successfully used to tackle stress in order to eliminate the majority of ADHD symptoms.
Hypothesis
Regular practice of the transcendental meditation technique is something that can result in the decrease of stress-related symptoms that are connected with ADHD.
Method
According to Larsson, Lichtenstein, & Larsson (2006), it is a commonly held belief that ADHD is a mental disorder that affects the operations of multiple executive functions due to the existence of poor inhibitory control. Stress is a factor that affects the operations of major executive operations such as working memory, cognitive and behavioral inhibition, as well as flexible transitioning (Stawicki, Nigg, & von Eye, 2006). The regular practice of transcendental meditation by adults as well as children can result in increased inhibitory control of the individual in question’s stress response (Thapar, Langley, Owen, & O’Donovan, 2007).
This research will examine the impact that the regular practice of transcendental meditation could have on neuro-developmental factors that exist in ADHD sufferers. According to Larsson, Lichtenstein, & Larsson (2006), stress affects an individual’s mood, attention, and self-regulatory functions. While there are drugs that have been found to be effective in combating stress effects that exacerbate ADHD symptoms, these drugs also produce unpleasant side effects in the majority of ADHD victims. Transcendental meditation is more effective because it is an option that has no uncomfortable side effects (Larsson, Lichtenstein, & Larsson, 2006). In addition, transcendental meditation is a more practical alternative for young victims of ADHD because it does not call for them to exercise control beyond their abilities, such as by controlling their thought processes, or concentrating for extensive periods on a single aspect. For the use of transcendental meditation to be successful among youthful ADHD victims, only two periods of meditation for 20 minutes, everyday, is necessary.
Overall Study Design. This study used as participants the students in a private K-12 school who had learning disabilities based on language. There were a total of 235 students who consented to be counted as participants in this research. Of this number, thirty-two were enrolled in middle school grades, and of these, 11 were established ADHD sufferers. Due to the fact that this would be an exploratory study, the researchers opted for a test design that was pretest-post, with a single cohort. In this randomized study, each group had 5 or 6 subjects. Due to the fact that ADHD victims tend to exhibit executive function, attention, and behavioral problems, the researchers opted for a variety of instruments to recognize the variables that would be most influenced most by the subsequent intervention.
Subjects. Participation in the research was limited to children between the ages of 11 and 14, who had previously been diagnosed with ADHD. Prior to the study, the parents and students were informed about the practice of transcendental meditation. Guardians were requested to provide information about the day that their children were diagnosed, and the medications that were recommended to them. Of 13 volunteers, 11 WHO had been diagnosed with ADHD were drafted for the study. After the start of the study, a participant who voiced a preference to meditate in her home was dropped from the study due to the fact that the researchers would not be able to fully monitor her progress. This means that of the 13 volunteers, there were ten who actively participated in the study. Of these ten, there were six African Americans, and four Caucasians.
Of this group, six participants suffered from inattentiveness, while four had combined symptoms that resulted in their inability to focus in any circumstance for long periods of time. Some of the comorbidities that were suffered by six of the students included the obsessive compulsive disorder, general anxiety disorder, tics, sleep disorders, pervasive developmental disorder, and dysthymia. Among the participants, eight children were on medications such as Ritalin and Concerta. Of these eight, three were also consuming mood stabilizers like Risperdal, Zoloft, and Welbutrin. All the participants also had language-based learning disabilities.
Procedure. Some weeks prior to the commencement of the study, four school workers were taught about the effects of transcendental meditation, and even learned how to practice it. These teachers would then teach their students this type of meditation twice a day. For three months, the research subjects would take part in 10 minutes worth of meditation twice a day. Even though the researchers did not monitor how students meditated at home, their parents were encouraged to teach their children to engage in increased meditation.
Instruments. Teachers and parents were encouraged to take inventories that were then used for data collection. In addition, informal video discussions volunteered more anecdotal information at post and pre-test times. In this research, the parents and teachers submitted the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) record, which is recognized as being diagnostic of the characteristics that demonstrate the existence of ADHD. The CBCL is commonly used in child psychology as a measure that is responsible for evaluating the extent of social and behavioral competency. It consists of 112 items which distinguish between clinical and non-clinical children (α = .78-.97, r = 0.95-1) (Ostrander, Crystal, & August, 2007). The CBCL can be summed up in two categories: the DSM-Oriented Scales and Syndrome Scales, and has a Total Problem score, as well as eight subscale scores.
Student participants finished their Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS), and Achenbach Youth Self-Report (YSR) to determine overall emotional as well as behavioral functioning capacities. The YSR, which is almost identical to the CBCL, supplies parallel measures from the parents, teachers, and students. The YSR contains 112 items that quantify eight symptoms in the subscale that are categorized under DSM-Oriented Scales, and Syndrome Scales with a Total Problem score (α = .71-.95; r = .47-.79) (Ostrander, Crystal, & August, 2007).
Statistical Analysis. To decrease the figure of statistical tests, the study’s variables were placed in two conceptual categories to match up to the hypothesis. One category was anxiety, stress, and symptoms of ADHD. This faction included all of RCMAS, YSR’s and CBCL relevant variables. The second category had calculations of executive functioning, including responses to the information from performance tests, and the instructors of BRIEF. The analysis was carried out on measures with adequate data.
CPT scores and parent inventories, though, were not included as half of all post test inventories from parents were not submitted to the researchers (Grosswa...