Application of a rehabilitation program for executive functions in a sample of Egyptian children with learning disorder

BACKGROUND: In recent years, significant progress has been made on ways to improve executive function (EF) skills for school readiness involving direct EF training and classroom educational programs. Due to the absence of a well-structured Arabic program for EF training in children, the rationale of this study is to implement a comprehensive, evidence-based intervention program to help Egyptian children with learning disorders to overcome their EF impairment. It uses the multimodality approach to help meet the needs of students with a variety of learning styles. The aim of this study is to adapt the combined form of the “Executive Functions Training-Elementary” and the “Promoting Executive Function In The Classroom” programs and its application to test its effectiveness in the rehabilitation of Egyptian learning-disordered children. RESULTS: The results showed significant improvement in the Arabic version of Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale, Children and Adolescents long-form (BDEFS-CA) scores for executive functions (EF) evaluation (executive function summery score from 228.63 to 213.77 with p-value < 0.001), and it also showed significant improvement in the Arabic dyslexia assessment test (ADAT) scores (from 1.89 to 1.33 with p-value < 0.001) for dyslexia evaluation. CONCLUSION: The study concluded that designing an Arabic rehabilitation program specific for executive function difficulties was effective for improving both EF deficits and dyslexia, but there is a need for further studies comparing this program to other methods of traditional interventions. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was retrospectively registered at www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT05476133, approved on 26 July 2022. Register name is the following: application of a rehabilitation program for executive functions in a sample of Egyptian children with learning disorder.