Mindfulness
Does meditation training improve young children's attention?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Young schoolchildren who did an 8-week meditation programme were rated by their teacher as less inattentive afterwards, an improvement not seen in a class that spent the same time reading and discussing a book about emotions.
Study at a glance
- Design
- RCT — Two second-grade classes randomly assigned as whole classes to mindfulness-oriented meditation (MOM) or an active emotion-awareness reading control, same instructors, three sessions a week for 8 weeks; teacher ratings and child self-report before and after
- N
- N=31 · 31 children (16 MOM, 15 control); the child self-report analysis had 15 per group because one MOM child missed the post-test
- Population
- Healthy Italian primary school children aged 7-8 from two classes of one school
- Outcome
- Teacher-rated behaviour problems (CBCL-TRF), teacher-rated attention/ADHD symptoms (Conners CTRS-R) and child self-reported depressive mood (SMFQ)
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Key findings
On the attention-focused teacher scale there was a significant group-by-time interaction: only the meditation group improved, with lower scores on inattention, the ADHD index and restless/impulsive behaviour, and no change in hyperactivity or oppositional behaviour. On the broader behaviour checklist, both groups showed fewer total and internalising problems after training, with no difference between them. Children's self-reported depressive mood did not change in either group.
Methodology
Two second-year classes at one Italian primary school were randomly assigned, as whole classes, either to mindfulness-oriented meditation or to an active control activity. The meditation class did short breathing, body and thought-watching exercises three times a week for 8 weeks, with sessions getting longer over time; the control class spent the same time with the same instructors reading and discussing a children's book about emotions. The children's main teacher, who did not know the study's aims, rated each child's behaviour problems and attention/ADHD symptoms before and after, and the children rated their own mood.
Limitations
With 31 children in only two classes, randomisation was at class level, so any difference between the two classrooms is confounded with the treatment. All the positive outcomes come from a single teacher's ratings rather than objective attention tests, and the children's own reports showed no benefit, possibly because baseline mood scores were already near the floor. There was no follow-up, so it is unknown whether the attention gains lasted, and the children were healthy, so the results do not show the programme treats ADHD.
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