Toward a Comprehensive Life-Course Model of Care for Youth with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Evaluating the content of Individualized Education Programs and 504 Plans of young adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

“…For example, in 2008 the Federal Department of Education (ED) published a manual titled “Teaching Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Instruction Strategies and Practices” (ED, 2008) that includes 128 recommended services for teaching children with ADHD. In addition, there are other published resources, such as reviews of evidence-based treatments for this population (e.g., Sibley, Kuriyan, Evans, Waxmonsky, & Smith, 2014; Evans, Owens, & Bunford, 2014), that could be helpful to school personnel to identify research-base services and create IEPs and 504 Plans that include these services. There also have been several published studies investigating the effects of psycho-pharmaceutical medication, behavioral modification, or their combination on the academic and behavioral performance of youth with ADHD (e.g., Pelham et al, 2014).…”

Middle School–based and High School–based Interventions for Adolescents with ADHD

“…Unfortunately, research findings often do not inform the decisions regarding the sequencing of these services. However, there is a model of care called the Life Course Model 45 based on the principle that treatments should be sequenced according to their likelihood for helping the patient independently meet age-appropriate expectations. In this model, services are organized into four layers with the first involving treatments designed to stabilize environments that may be significantly exacerbating problems such as a chaotic home or classroom.…”

“…The rationale for the model, thorough descriptions, and additional details are provided in other publications. 45, 46 In this model of care, the school-based treatments described in this manuscript would be frontline services for adolescents with ADHD.…”

The Role of Parental ADHD in Sustaining the Effects of a Family-School Intervention for ADHD

“…Recent findings suggesting that a cooperative effort between parents and teachers can have positive effects in diverse child populations, specifically children with disruptive behaviors (e.g., Sheridan, Ryoo, Garbacz, Kunz, & Chumney, 2013), points to the need to investigate the benefit of enhancing parent training for children with ADHD with strategies for increasing family involvement in their child’s academic life. Family School Success (FSS; Power et al, 2012) is a novel, integrative psychosocial intervention for children with ADHD combining components of efficacious interventions to improve children’s behavioral and academic functioning at home and at school (e.g., behavioral parent training, daily report card, and conjoint behavioral consultation; Evans et al, 2013; Owens et al, 2008; Sheridan & Kratochwill, 2008). By combining these treatment approaches across home and school settings, FSS aims to improve parenting, parent involvement in education, and parent-teacher collaboration in order to ultimately improve children’s behavior and academic performance.…”

“…Two of the three studies reviewed above also did not investigate the persistence of effects after treatment termination. Sustainability is increasingly becoming a focus of intervention development (Evans, Owens, Mautone, DuPaul, & Power, 2013), which is particularly important for ADHD interventions given that this disorder is chronic in nature (Wolraich et al, 2011). Therefore, the transition to a chronic care or life course model that emphasizes the sustainment of treatment effects appears essential for this impaired population (see Evans et al, 2013).…”