Evaluating the efficacy of a Virtual Reality program designed to train inhibitory control in adolescents with ADHD: Alfi VR:

Approximately 7% of Australian children are diagnosed with ADHD which result in increased levels of distractibility, impulsivity, forgetfulness, and poor focus. These behaviours have a significant impact on learning, social skills and mental health. For 80% of children with ADHD, symptoms persist into adolescence and for some, into adulthood. The constellation of long-term negative outcomes underscores the demand for effective ADHD treatments – with psychostimulant medication, the mainstay treatment for ADHD. Computerised cognitive training programs that target working memory have achieved widespread clinical use in ADHD, yet the rationale for this approach is not well established. Although working memory impairments are commonly reported in ADHD, alone they are unlikely to underpin the entire spectrum of behavioural symptoms observed in ADHD. In order to promote sustained reductions in core symptoms of ADHD (which to date have been limited), there is an urgent need to provide training interventions that target a broader range of cognitive processes that are causally linked to ADHD symptoms. The main objective of the current project is to develop and evaluate a prototype of a inhibitory control training module using virtual reality in adolescents with ADHD.