Effect of Intervention Programme on Attention, Memory and Intellectual Ability among Tribal Children

Aim: The present research studied the effect of intervention programme on attention, memory and intellectual ability among tribal children.

Study Design: A before - after group design with post assessment after three and half months of intervention programme was adapted for the study. The intervention programme consisted of art and craft wok; games and play; word games; number games and cultural activities.

Place of Study: The research was conducted in an Ashrama School at B. Matkere Colony of Hegadadevana Kote Taluk, Mysore District, Karnataka State, India.

Sample: The sample consisted of 42 tribal children studying in 4th, 5th and 6th standard, aged between 9 to 12 years.

Methodology: Initially the group was screened on Children’s Behaviour Questionnaire and then was assessed on attention, memory and intellectual ability. The intervention programme was conducted for a period of three and half months. Again the group was assessed on attention, memory and intellectual ability. Paired ‘t’ analysis was adopted to find the difference between pre and post intervention.

Results: On number cancellation test the tribal children demonstrated a significant improvement for double digit cancellation but not for single digit cancellation; on colour progressive matrices the tribal children demonstrated a significant improvement on total scores after intervention. On different sub tests of personal information, mental control, sentence repetition, word recall meaningful, word recall non-meaningful, digit span forward, delayed response, picture recall, paired associate learning, retentivity test, and total score for Memory Test for Children there was significant improvement after intervention. There was no significant improvement on subtests of immediate logical memory, delayed logical memory, digit span backward and Benton’s Visual Retention Test.

Conclusions: Over all on many areas of cognitive aspects there was a significant improvement among the tribal children indicating effectiveness of intervention programme. Hence it could be concluded that play way method of intervention programmes can be used to bring improvement in attention, memory and intellectual functioning.