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Examining the Impacts of Fidget Technology on Attention in Children With ADHD

University of North Carolina (UNC) logo

University of North Carolina (UNC)

Status

Completed

Conditions

ADHD

Treatments

Other: Control group
Other: Fidget Device

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT05384717
22-0531

Details and patient eligibility

About

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the usage of fidget technology and its effects on attention, working memory, and comprehension in children ages 6-13 with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This study aims to examine the implications of fidget usage 2 different measures of attention; attentional control (working memory domain) and comprehension (recall, encoding, and recognition).

Participants: 6-13 year-old clients at 3-C Family Services, a private mental health clinic in Cary, NC, with a diagnosis of ADHD (Inattentive, Hyperactive, or combined types). Exclusion criteria: participants with an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) below 70 as estimated by referring 3-C clinical staff, or any history of psychosis.

Procedures (methods): This research will use a demographic and background collecting survey to gather relevant data about each participant. Parents will be asked to fill out a baseline ADHD Rating Scale-IV: Home Version (ADHD-RS), to account for their child's symptoms of ADHD over the past 6 months. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of 2 conditions, an experimental group where participants select a fidget, and a control group where participants are not provided a fidget. Fidget options will include a fidget spinner, pop-it, stress ball, and fidget cube as not all children would benefit from the same type of fidget equally. Participants in the experimental group will then be allowed to practice with and familiarize themselves with the fidget for 1 minute to decrease the attentional drain that the fidget may pose in its initial state.

After random assignment to either control or experimental group, participants in each group will then complete the same 2-back version of the N-back Attention Control Task (cognitivefun.net), and a video comprehension multiple choice test. After 3 minutes N-back scores will be recorded including visual correct ratio and visual response time scores. The video comprehension item is adapted from Lee and List, 2019. The video is a Ted Talk titled "The Survival of the Sea Turtle" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-KmQ6pGxg4). Items in the multiple choice test will be aggregated to a score of percent correctness for each participant. Participants may request to have questions read to them by the research assistant present.

Enrollment

21 patients

Sex

All

Ages

6 to 13 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

  • Diagnosis of ADHD

Exclusion criteria

  • Psychosis
  • IQ under 70

Trial design

Primary purpose

Other

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

None (Open label)

21 participants in 2 patient groups, including a placebo group

Fidget group
Experimental group
Description:
Participants in the experimental fidget group select a fidget from 4 options: fidget spinner, stress ball, pop-it, or fidget cube
Treatment:
Other: Fidget Device
Control group
Placebo Comparator group
Description:
No fidget choice provided
Treatment:
Other: Control group

Trial contacts and locations

1

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Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

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