A Parent-child Yoga Intervention for Reducing Attention Deficits in Children with Congenital Heart Disease: a Feasibility Study

Participation Requirements

• Sex:

  ALL

• Eligible Ages:

  4 to 6

Participation Criteria

To be eligible for the study, children need to meet the following inclusion criteria:

1. diagnosis of CHD requiring heart surgery;
2. aged 4 to 6 years old;
3. poor attentional skills measured with Variability score (0.5 standard deviation below norms) at the Kiddie Conners Continuous Performance Test, 2nd Edition (K-CPT2), a sensitive measure for attentional impairments. This inclusion criteria is important since yoga intervention has shown larger effects on attention in children with greater difficulties before the intervention;
4. parent willing to participate to the 8-week parent-child yoga intervention and the pre/post/6-month follow-up assessments;
5. for children with ADHD medication (approx. 5% of the 4-to-6-year-olds at our neurocardiac clinic), parent accept to temporary stop it to at least 48h prior to each assessment.

Exclusion criteria will be the following:

1. having a medical contraindication to the practice of yoga;
2. confirmed diagnosis of severe developmental or intellectual delay that would prevent successful completion of the planned study testing;
3. presence of severe physical handicap that would preclude the child from participating in the yoga intervention without special adaptation;
4. families who do not speak French or English (less than 3% of families followed in our clinics);
5. children who have been engaged in a structured weekly yoga program for at least a month in the past year (based on our parents' poll, less than 5%). However, parents included could have past or actual experience in practicing yoga.

Eligibility will be determined:

1. by consulting the child's medical record;
2. during a child medical visit at one of the sites or a virtual visit with the research team by administering the K-CPT2.