the effect of sensory diet on the impulsivity of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Introduction: the present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of a family-centeredsensory diet program on the impulsivity in children with attention deficit hyperactivitydisorder (adhd).materials and methods: this is a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttestdesign with a control group. the study population included all children with adhdaged 6-12 years in tehran, iran referred to the clinics of hasti, bahar, and masir-e sabzin 2020. of these, 30 children were selected using a convenience sampling method andrandomly divided into two groups of intervention and control. the intervention groupunderwent 12 sessions of a family-centered sensory diet program, 3 days a week, eachfor 45 minutes based on the wilbarger protocol. the used tools were the wechslerintelligence scale for children-fourth edition to test intellectual ability and the conners’parent rating scale to diagnose adhd in children. independent t test and analysis ofcovariance (ancova) were used in spss software v. 20 for data analysis.results: in this study, the mean age of participants was 9.56±4.38 years, including 11girls (36.6%) and 19 boys (63.3%), and the mean age of mothers of these children was34.23±6.9. the mean impulsivity scores of children in the intervention group decreasedand the results of the ancova showed a statistically significant difference in the meanposttest scores between the two groups (p=0.001).conclusion: the family-centered sensory diet program has a positive effect on theimpulsivity of children with adhd. it is recommended that therapists use the sensorydiet program as a complementary therapy along with other therapeutic interventions.