Early Intervention for Young Children At-Risk for ADHD: Evaluating Efficacy and Delivery Format for Behavioral Parent Education
Lehigh University
Summary
Parent education is an effective and relatively cost efficient approach for reducing child behavior problems. Research, however, suggests that the effectiveness of parent education is mitigated by parent attendance and parent implementation of intervention strategies. That is, low attendance at parent education sessions is associated with limited intervention effects. Therefore, it is critical to identify strategies to enhance parent engagement. A previous pilot randomized controlled trial of a parent education program (Behavioral Parent Education; BPE, specifically Promoting Engagement for ADHD pre-Kindergartners \[PEAK\]), found that both face-to-face (F2F) and online BPE resulted in high levels of parent engagement and child behavior improvements. However, results need to be replicated in a full scale efficacy trial with a larger, diverse sample to provide more reliable estimates of relative effect sizes for parent and child outcomes and to evaluate the extent to which parent and child behavior changes are maintained after BPE has ended. In the current randomized controlled trial, the investigators intend to apply What Works Clearinghouse group design standards to examine the efficacy of two forms of delivery of BPE (F2F and online) relative to a wait-list control condition in a sample of 180, 3- to 5-year old children with clinically significant symptoms of ADHD. The objective is to: (a) extend findings from the pilot investigation to a large, diverse sample; (b) examine maintenance of effects; (c) identify moderators and mediators of treatment outcome, especially the degree to which these may differ for F2F vs. online treatment delivery; and (d) assess cost and cost-effectiveness of the two PEAK delivery formats.
Description
PEAK addresses potential barriers to treatment access and engagement in at least four ways. First, the 10 sessions require fewer hours to complete relative to typical BPE programs. Second, PEAK content and process was developed with extensive input from primary stakeholders (i.e., parents of young children with ADHD). The iterative process used in the Development grant provided critical parental input regarding revision to maximize engagement. Third, the availability of online treatment delivery allows greater flexibility relative to F2F delivery in terms of time and location of completing BPE…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 3–5 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Yes
Inclusion Criteria: * 3- to 5.11-year old children with clinically significant symptoms of ADHD. * Children had to have met DSM-5 criteria for one of the three presentations of ADHD based on clinical interview and parent and teacher behavior ratings, including parent and teacher report of elevated levels of impairment at home and school (i.e., score greater than 90th percentile on one or more Conners Early Childhood Rating Scale subscales relevant to ADHD). Exclusion Criteria: * A diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), pervasive developmental disorder, intellectual disability, neurolo…
Interventions
- BehavioralPromoting Engagement with ADHD Pre-Kindergarteners
Optimism Training includes the following strategies: 1) Identifying situations and associations 2) Determining consequences of beliefs 3) Use distractions to interrupt negative thinking 4) dispute current thinking 5) substitute positive, productive thoughts 6) practice skills to recognize/modify self-talk 7) Maintain positive changes in self-talk
Location
- Lehigh UniversityBethlehem, Pennsylvania