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Review
. 2023 Sep 27;10(10):1613.
doi: 10.3390/children10101613.

Psychological Treatments for Hyperactivity and Impulsivity in Children with ADHD: A Narrative Review

Shayan Sadr-Salek  1 , Andreia P Costa  2 , Georges Steffgen  2
Affiliations
Review

Psychological Treatments for Hyperactivity and Impulsivity in Children with ADHD: A Narrative Review

Shayan Sadr-Salek et al. Children (Basel). .

Abstract

Treatment of the ADHD types (hyperactive-impulsive, inattentive, and combined) in children has rarely been studied separately, although their prognostic courses differ widely. In addition, data show that improvements in hyperactivity/impulsivity are hard to achieve. Thus, we focused on treatments tailored to hyperactivity/impulsivity. We examined meta-analyses and systematic reviews within the inter- and intra-individual treatments and found that psychoeducation and training for parents, school-based interventions, reinforcement strategies, and neurofeedback consistently showed small to moderate effect sizes in reducing hyperactivity/impulsivity in children. Conversely, emotional self-regulation, social skills, and cognitive trainings showed unsatisfactory results. In summary, we found that the quality of usual care can be surpassed when the designated interventions are purposefully combined into a multimodal treatment program.

Keywords: ADHD; hyperactivity; impulsivity; narrative review; treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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