INFORMATION SHEET

rev. 8/18/08

In 1998, Relax4Life developed it's now patented, mirror-image, 2-person/2-handed inlaid wood finger labyrinth design known as the Intuipath®.   Since that time, we have received numerous reports from parents, school teachers and therapists who purchased the Intuipath® about its calming and attention-focusing effects on their children and adolescents.

Some parents, while seeing the benefits for their children, asked if we would consider making a lighter-weight, smaller version of the adult Intuipath® for children and adolescents with smaller hands and reach.  We have also been asked numerous times over the past 10 years if our contention that the Intuipath® brings greater relaxation and mental focus to those children who use it, is backed up by any scientific studies.  Since no scientific studies have been performed to date on the Intuipath® concept, we decided to create a research project to study this and we developed a smaller, lighter-weight Intuipath® (the Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents) for this purpose. 

The question that will hopefully be answered by this research is whether children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD combined type or ADD with Hyperactivity, who use both hands simultaneously to move through a mirror-image wood finger labyrinth design (the Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents) for a specified amount of time (3-5 times per week for 5 minutes each) will show a reduction in the behavioral symptoms associated with this condition (hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention) over ADHD-diagnosed children who engage in a similar activity (moving both hands through a tray of sand) for the same amount of time.

If you are interested in having your child considered for this study, these are the guidelines; 

1.  He or she must be between the ages of 7 and 17

2.  He or she must have a diagnosis (by a qualified health professional) of either ADHD combined type or ADD with Hyperactivity

3.  He or she can be taking medication for this condition or not

The steps to participation are as follows:

A.  Fill out a questionnaire and return it to Relax4Life.  To view and print out the questionnaire as a pdf file, click here.

B.  Once we receive your completed questionnaire, we will contact you within 7 days (usually a much shorter period) and let you know if your child is eligible to take part.  If you do not receive confirmation in that time period that we received your questionnaire, it may be that the questionnaire came through the fax as unreadable or possibly was lost in the mail.  Please contact us if you do not get a timely response confirming receipt of your questionnaire.

C.  If your child meets the criteria, we will then send you further information along with a consent form to participate and the first ADHD-SRS Rating Scale to be filled out.  The rating scale and consent form will be completed and mailed back to us in a return postage paid envelope. 

Benefits/Compensation:

The benefits to participation are: your child showing a reduction in behaviors commonly associated with this diagnosis.  This might mean better school performance, increased social abilities, higher self esteem etc.

The tangible benefit for participating is that if your child is randomly selected to be in one of the groups that uses the Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents, your child will get to keep it once your completed paperwork is returned to us. If your child is randomly selected to be in one of the sand tray groups, your child will be shipped a new Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents to keep once we receive your completed paperwork.

Research Procedure:

Those children eligible to take part will be provided with either an Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents or a sand tray for the duration of the study.

A parent or other adult, school educator or therapist will need to supervise the child either using the  Intuipath® design or a sand tray at approximately the same time each day, 3-5 times per week for 5-minutes each, for a consecutive 4-week period.

An observational rating scale (ADHD-SRS) with 56 questions will need to be filled out completely on your child (by a parent, school educator or therapist) three times: before your child begins the use of the Intuipath® or sand tray, at the end of the 4 week research period, and once more at 6 weeks (to determine any continuing effects of these activities). The ADHD-SRS observational tool typically takes between 10-15 minutes to complete.

Confidentiality:

All Participants’ identities and information will remain strictly confidential. Research results will be published in summary format with reference given to groups only.