The Effect of Early Motivational Program on Mediating Components of Learning: Implications for Education and Mental Health Policy

The significant number of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children in families and the problems related to their education and medical services creates financial burdens and problems for families, Schools & the government. Finding early intervention programs to promote learning can help reduce those problems associated with ADHD. The present study attempted to investigate the effect of organized motivational program (OMP) on working memory (WM) in ADHD children. The participants (4 girls and 8 boys) were divided into experimental and control groups. They were selected from among 36 subjects after primary tests to be matched. The design of the study was semi-experimental including an independent variable, a pretest and a posttest. After considering the research hypotheses using descriptive statistics and one-way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), the results suggested a significant difference in posttest scores of experimental and control groups after independent variable being applied. The results showed that a motivational program including math assignments that it had coincided with children's motivations can have a positive effect on WM in children with ADHD. Due to the effect of the nature and method of applying the motivational program, an increase was observed in the working memory performance of the experimental group. The findings have critical implications for potential policies adopted for children and adolescents with ADHD.