Application of a Training Program for Executive Functions in a Sample of Egyptian Children With Learning Disorder

Overview

In recent years, significant progress has been made on ways to improve Executive Functions (EF) skills for school readiness involving direct EF training and classroom educational programs. Due to the absence of a well-structured Arabic program for EF training in children, the rationale of this study is to implement a comprehensive, evidence-based intervention program to help Egyptian children with learning disorders to overcome their EF impairment. It uses the multimodality approach to help meet the needs of students with a variety of learning styles. The aim of this study is to adapt the combined form of the "Executive Functions Training-Elementary", and the "Promoting Executive Function In The Classroom" programs and its application in order to test its effectiveness in the rehabilitation of Egyptian learning disordered children.

The study was conducted on 40 children with dyslexia and Executive dysfunction attending unit of phoniatrics, Otorhinolaryngology department, Alexandria University. The results were compared before and after intervention. The "Executive Functions Training-Elementary" program is an evidence-based practice that targets Executive function skills in the early elementary years by training students how to plan, execute, complete, and monitor tasks. It develops cognitive abilities and behavior control with classroom-related activities for varying ability levels. The "Promoting Executive Function In The Classroom" program helps to incorporate Executive function processes (such as planning, organization, prioritizing, and self-checking) into the classroom curriculum. Chapters provide effective strategies for learning by improving how to learn. Data were collected and entered to the computer using (Statistical Package for Social Science) program for statistical analysis (version 21). Data were entered as numerical or categorical, as appropriate. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of normality revealed no significance in the distribution of the variables, so the parametric statistics was adopted. Data were described using minimum, maximum, mean, standard deviation and 95% Confidence Interval of the mean. Categorical variables were described using frequency and percentage. Comparisons were carried out between two studied dependent normally distributed variables using paired t-test. Comparisons were carried out between more than two independent normally distributed subgroups using one-way Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA) test. When F ratio of ANOVA was significant Levene test of homogeneity of variances was done, and if significant Brown-Forsythe Robust test was adopted. Post-hoc multiple comparisons was done using Games-Howell.