Is the Cogmed program effective for youths with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder under pharmacological treatment?

Abstract

Summary The primary objective of this study was to examine the effects of the Cogmed training program on working memory among youths 7 to 13 years old, with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) type and comorbidity controlled for. A secondary objective was to examine the generalization of effects to ADHD symptoms, nonverbal reasoning, attentional and executive functions, inhibition, reading comprehension, and mathematical reasoning. Participants were under pharmacological treatment for ADHD combined type and a comorbidity. They were randomized into an experimental group that received the Cogmed program and an active control group that received a low‐intensity comparison version of the training. They were evaluated at three time points: 6 weeks prior to intervention onset (T1), immediately prior to onset (T2), and 1 week following intervention completion (T3). Results indicate no significant effect attributable to the Cogmed program. The fact that participants were on medication at the time of training and evaluation normalized their performances and limited the detection of effects. Moreover, cognitive training did not lead to a reduction in ADHD symptoms or to an improvement in the other cognitive functions measured or in academic performance. The results of this study do not demonstrate the effectiveness of the Cogmed program for youths with ADHD combined type and a comorbidity when they receive the training while under pharmacological treatment.

Working memory training in children with borderline intellectual functioning and neuropsychiatric disorders: a triple‐blind randomised controlled trial

“…Furthermore, no additional effects in favour of the experimental WMT were found on any of the secondary (near-transfer and far-transfer tasks) or tertiary (behavioural measures) outcomes. These findings are consistent with the outcome of several meta-analyses and reviews on Cogmed WMT (Shipstead et al 2012;Chacko et al 2013;Melby-Lervåg & Hulme 2013;Rapport et al 2013;Sonuga-Barke et al 2013;Cortese et al 2015) and a recent study in youth with ADHD under pharmacological treatment (Dentz et al 2020).…”

Effect of Cognitive Training Programs Based on Computer Systems on Executive Functions in Children With ADHD: A Systematic Review

“…Two of the studies included evoked potentials with electroencephalography (Meyer et al, 2020; Smith et al, 2019). Most of the studies implemented pen-and-paper assessments, and seven of the studies (35%) were computerized (Bioulac et al, 2020; Dentz et al, 2020; Dovis et al, 2019; Kofler et al, 2018; Kollins et al, 2020; Lee et al, 2021; Nejati, 2020; 20% incorporated secondary measures to evaluate safety, acceptability (Davis et al, 2018), usability, feasibility, and satisfaction with respect to training (See Table 3).…”

“…Though most studies implemented it as a secondary measure to moderate neuropsychological measures, only Bigorra et al (2016) included it as a primary one. The results showed a trend of negative effects reported mainly by parents (Bikic et al, 2018;Dentz et al, 2020;Kollins et al, 2020;Orylska et al, 2019). Only the study by Davis et al (2018) compared the effects between ADHD groups according to symptom severity, reporting significant results for the severe symptom group.…”

“…The authors found that pharmacological treatment is an important moderator for visuospatial WM and this effect was maintained during follow-up (F (2, 174,212) =3,853, p =.023). Dentz et al (2020) evaluated the effects of Cogmed on the results of WM with the same measures used by van der Donk et al (2020). Nonetheless, in their findings, the experimental group did not improve more than the active control in verbal WM (progressive digit, p = .15; regressive digits, p = .59; numerical letter-sequencing, p = .64) or visuospatial WM (spatial-progressive interval, progressive, p =.92; spatial-regressive interval, p =.73).…”

“…In 14 of these, the effect of the intervention on ADHD symptoms was assessed as secondary study outcomes, and in three of the studies, symptoms were measured for sample eligibility using the ADHD-RS-IV scales (Davis et al, 2018) and the SNAP-IV Scale (Hamidi et al, 2020;Kollins et al, 2020). Nine of the investigations reported positive effects of training on the reduction of ADHD symptoms (Barzegar et al, 2020;Bigorra et al, 2016;Bioulac et al, 2020;Bul et al, 2018;Kofler et al, 2018Kofler et al, , 2020Meyer et al, 2020;Nejati, 2020;Pahlevanian et al, 2017), while five studies reported that cognitive training based on computer systems does not lead to an improvement in ADHD symptoms (Bikic et al, 2018;Dentz et al, 2020;Dovis et al, 2019;Lee et al, 2021;Smith et al, 2020).…”