Summer Intervention Program

Effects of Intervention Program for Children and Adolescents with ADHD on Working Memory Debbie Gleason Loyola University Chicago Introduction Methods Discussion References Results • Aloisi, B., McKone, E., Heubeck, Bernd. (2004). Implicit and explicit Memory Performance in Children with AD/HD. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22, 275–292. •Barkley, R. (2002). Psychosocial Treatments for AD/HD in Children. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 63, 36-43. •Flake, R., Lorch, E., Milich, R. (2007). The Effects of Thematic Importance on Story Recall among Children with AD/HD and Comparison Children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. •Kollins,S.et al (1997).Experimental analysis of childhood psychopathology: A Matching analysis of the behavior of children diagnosed with ADHD. The Psychological Record, 47, 25-44. •Ormrod, J. (2011). Educational Psychology Developing Learners (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. ,[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],[object Object],• There is lots of research on ADHD treatment, but many questions still linger in terms of efficacy (Barkley, 2002). Two research questions: the first question was to find the best strategies to help, children with ADHD, improve in different areas of learning. The second question was proposed to help teachers/parents decide what age to execute strategies to achieve the best results. It was predicted that the intervention would increase memory span and that children would show higher scores than adolescents. A correlation and t-test were used to analyze the data; both suggesting no significance. •Limits : this sample was small and only included children diagnosed with ADHD. A small group does not allow as much power as a larger sample and without a control group there is little to compare. Also children were not tested during a school/home setting but directly after the intervention program. A suggestion for future research is to have a larger sample and to test working memory skills after going back to a school setting, for this may show a more significant change in learning ability and how it relates to everyday life. •Remember that although there are many treatment techniques - no one single method will treat all symptoms of ADHD. It is best to use more than one method such as reinforcement (Kollins, 1997) through a token rewards system, behavioral therapy or even medication, and in different settings as well(home and school). • ADHD is characterized by significant and chronic deficits in these three areas: inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity (Ormrod, 2011), lack of memory skills, inadequate social skills & inattention. • Studies on treatment for AD/HD: Implicit and explicit memory tasks have been researched (Aloisi et al., 2004) resulting in lower explicit memory scores for participants with AD/HD – even though half were on medicine during the testing, which suggests that medicine does not cater to all symptoms. • Research has also focused on recall of a televised show by children (ages 4-9) with ADHD and without (Flake et al., 2007). When toys were present children with ADHD recalled less coherent story plots and did not recall as much in the correct order. This adds to the findings of differences in higher order cognitive processes in children with ADHD. • Questions: Do the strategies presented in the summer intervention program really make a difference in the participants learning abilities such as working memory? Additionally, is there a difference between the scores of Children and Adolescents after the intervention? • Predictions: The intervention program will show a significant increase in working memory scores. Children will show better posttest memory scores because they are more malleable than the adolescents who may have learned more by this point and thus wont be able to pick up new strategies quite as fast. • 14 Children and 14 Adolescents with AD/HD • Parents were informed of the study through the radio, referrals, and word of mouth. After contacting the University of Texas at Dallas, their children were enrolled and asked to participate in 10 full day sessions with activities and lessons. • Descriptives of pretest and posttest working memory scores (right) • No sig change between pretest and posttest results • No sig. relationship between memory and intervention (below) r = .074, p>.01 • No sig. between memory of children versus adolescents (not shown) T(28)=-.376, p=.710 N Mean Std. D Pretest Memory 28 55.71 22.841 Posttest Memory 28 81.43 19.760 Valid N 28

Summer Intervention Program

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