Use of Haptic Training to Modify Impulse and Attention Control Deficits of Learning Disabled Children

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to determine if an haptic training program to teach impulse and attention control to 12 children diagnosed communications handicapped with a secondary classification of neurological impairment could modify their encoding strategies and performance on an haptic discrimination task in the direction of increased reflectivity. The degree to which the effects of haptic training generalized to the educationally more relevant visual modality, and the durability of results for both modalities, were also examined. Significant improvements in scanning and processing times, attention deployment strategies, and response accuracy on the haptic and visual discrimination tasks observed at posttesting and at follow-up, coupled with posttraining increases in reflectivity as measured by the Matching Familiar Figures test, demonstrate the effectiveness, durability, and generalizability of haptic training. Reasons for the intervention's effectiveness in modifying LD children's impulsive cognitive tempo and attention deficits, and the practical advantages of haptic as compared to visual training, are discussed.