Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) mainly manifests as learning difficulties, emotional impulsiveness, excessive activities, and attention deficit disorder. Given that it can influence social communication abilities, as well as physical and psychological health and viability, ADHD rehabilitation has attracted close attention. This study aims to discuss the influences of musicotherapy combined with cognitive behavioral intervention on the cognitive ability of children with ADHD and provide some references for ADHD rehabilitation.
Subjects and methods: A total of 120 children with ADHD in the Cooperative Hospital of Guangzhou University from June 2018 to May 2021 were chosen as the research objects. They were divided randomly into the control and observation groups with 60 cases in each group via the observing random digital method. The control group was the blank control and did not receive any intervention. The observation group received 16 weeks of musicotherapy combined with cognitive behavioral intervention. Symptoms and the results of the numerical cross-attention test, the Wisconsin card sorting test, the combined Raven's test (CRT), the Wechsler intelligence scale for children test, and Conner's child behavioral scale for parents of the two groups before and after the intervention were compared.
Results: The relevant indexes of the control group did not show any significant changes after the intervention (P>0.05). In the intervention group, the accurately crossed number and net scores increased significantly, whereas the wrongly crossed number and missed crossed number scores and error; attention deficit; hyperactivity-impulsiveness; and ADHD-RS-Ⅳ total scores declined dramatically after intervention relative to those before the intervention. Moreover, the above indexes of the observation group showed more significant improvements than those of the control group (P<0.05). In the observation group, the conceptual level percentage and the number of completed classes had significantly increased and the number of discontinuous errors and number of continuous errors after the intervention had dropped sharply compared with those before. The above indexes of the observation group had improved significantly compared with those of the control group (P<0.05). Moreover, in both groups, the concentration/attention factor and CRT scores increased dramatically and the scores of Conner's child behavior scale after the intervention had dropped significantly compared with those before. After intervention, the above indexes of the observation group showed greater improvements than those of the control group (P<0.05).
Conclusions: The musicotherapy combined with cognitive behavioral intervention can improve the cognitive functions of children with ADHD and has clinical application values.