Development of a Brief, Behavioral Homework Intervention for Middle School Students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

In contrast to the vast literature on treatments for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), there is a relative paucity of research examining the efficacy of psychosocial treatments for adolescents with ADHD. Furthermore, only a handful of ADHD treatment studies employ educational interventions to improve academic functioning, and no study to date has examined a parent training intervention for targeting homework problems in middle school students with ADHD. This is despite a majority of parents of adolescents with ADHD reporting academic issues as their primary concern. In order to address this treatment need and gap in the literature, a behaviorally based, family-school homework intervention program (HIP) was developed. Participants included 11 middle school students diagnosed with ADHD and their mothers. A multiple-baseline (MB) across participants design was used to assess intervention effects. Results from this single-subject design demonstrated improvement in parent-reported homework problems and ADHD symptoms, overall grade point average, and teacher-reported academic productivity. Further, this intervention demonstrated high levels of satisfaction as perceived by parents and moderate levels of satisfaction as perceived by adolescents. Well-controlled, group-design studies should be conducted to further evaluate the efficacy of the HIP for middle school students with ADHD. © 2009, Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.