Therapeutic hypnosis in a child with a written language disorder

ABSTRACT

Children with Attentional Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) frequently have low self-awareness and attentional deficits on which therapeutic hypnosis can have a positive impact. Here we investigated the contribution of therapeutic hypnosis in the treatment of written language disorders in a child with ADHD. This study is a Single-Case Experimental Design (SCED) using repeated measures. The participant is 11 years old. We assessed reading performance and verbal fluency for four weeks before starting the intervention, as well as during the therapeutic window when four hypnosis sessions were administered over an 8-week timeframe. We assessed written language through a regular and irregular word reading test, a spelling choice test, a phonological analysis test, and a fast serial naming test pre- and post-intervention. We assessed attention and self-esteem pre- and post-intervention. The patient’s scores on text reading improved during the intervention compared to the baseline (p = .028). Reading fluency improved, but the pre-post comparison did not reach statistical significance. A progression in scores and response times in phonological tests was observed, with the participant moving from pathological scores in the pre-intervention to normative scores in the post-intervention. Attention and self-esteem significantly improved after the treatment (p = .031, and p = .002 respectively). These results indicate that hypnosis-based therapy might be beneficial to children with specific written language disorders. If these results are confirmed in future studies, therapeutic hypnosis may become part of the recommendations for treatment of ADHD.

KEYWORDS:

• Attention
• hypnosis
• self-esteem
• speech language therapy
• written language disorder