| Keywords: |
Children, cognitive disabilities, communication skills, developmental disabilities, intervention, literature reviews, motor skills, nervous system, rehabilitation services, social skills, therapy |
| Abstract: |
Study analyzed the intervention methods used in relation to cognitive function in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. The term “neurodevelopmental disorder” implies a delay in development and impairments in cognitive function, motor function, verbal communication, social skills, and behaviors. The American Psychiatric Association classifies the neurodevelopment disorders into ten disorders: intellectual disabilities, global developmental delay (GDD), communication disorders, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), specific learning disorders, developmental coordination disorders (DCD), stereotypical movement disorders, tic disorders, and Tourette’s syndrome. After the searching EBSCOhost and PubMed databases for experimental studies published between 2006 and 2016 using keywords that generated a total of 3,115 publications, researchers initially reviewed the abstracts, and subsequently assessed full articles; 26 studies met the inclusion criteria. Two reviewers independently assessed the level of evidence of qualitative studies, and the frequency of participants, intervention information, and methods used were analyzed. Twelve studies (44.4 percent) involved participants with ASD, six articles (22.2 percent) involved ADHD, four articles (14.8 percent) involved GDD, and two articles (7.4 percent) involved DCD. When studies were classified according to the chronological ages of participants, the most commonly studied participants were of grade-school age (17 studies, 63.0 percent). Cognitive therapy showed the level I evidence in participants with ASD, ADHD, and GDD. Findings of this study provide an indication about the types of cognitive therapies used in children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and provide available and beneficial information of cognitive therapies in research and clinical settings. |
