The Impact of Cardiac Coherence on Executive Functioning in Children With Emotional Disturbances

OBJECTIVE We used archival data originally collected using a quasi-experimental design to analyze inhibition, emotional regulation, working memory, and cognitive flexibility before and after an intervention of a coherence training program incorporating heart rate variability biofeedback. METHOD Sixty-three participants, ages 7 to 14 years, were involved in the study: 30 in the treatment group and 33 in the control group. Split-plot analysis of variance (SPANOVA) was used to assess the impact of the intervention for the 4 dependent variables. RESULTS SPANOVA yielded no significant differences among inhibition, emotional regulation, working memory, and cognitive flexibility in response to the coherence training intervention. CONCLUSIONS Future research in this area would benefit from the use of more objective measures of executive functioning. Qualitative assessment of child-reported symptomatology and treatment acceptability on the part of students and staff would also be an area for future research.