Enhancing IEPs of Children With ADHD Using Daily Report Cards

This study will investigate the efficacy of an intervention to enhance the special education supports used for children with ADHD (i.e., the manner in which goals/objectives on the IEP are monitored and addressed; targeting of social/behavioral goals).

The purpose of this proposed study is to provide evidence for the efficacy of using a daily report card intervention (DRC) as a means of linking the child with ADHD's IEP goals and objectives to his/her daily functioning in the classroom environment. A Goal 2 study was recently completed to develop and provide preliminary support for the DRC intervention for this purpose (Fabiano et al., 2010). The proposed investigation will be a multi-site study conducted in elementary schools throughout the Western New York and South Florida area. Participants will be 216 children (grades K-6), who have been diagnosed with ADHD and have an IEP (e.g., Specific Learning Disability, Emotionally Disturbed, Other Health Impaired).

In the proposed study, the efficacy of the DRC as an enhancement to children with ADHD's IEPs will be investigated in an experimental study. Children will be randomly assigned on the individual level to a condition where a behavioral consultant works with the child's teacher(s) to construct a DRC, implement it, and monitor it, or to an IEP only, school as usual (SAU) condition, where teachers will attempt to meet the IEP goals and objectives as they typically would. A DRC is an operationalized list of target behaviors (e.g., "completes reading assignments with 80% accuracy or better," "has no office time outs during the day") that are evaluated each day by the teacher. The DRC is used as a means of providing the child and parent feedback on progress on a daily basis, and it doubles as a mechanism teachers can use to track and monitor the child's behavior and progress on key functional domains. The DRC can be easily linked to IEP goals and objectives, providing a bridge between the IEP and the child's daily functioning in the classroom. Parents will also be taught in parenting meetings how to reward their child at home for successful attainment of DRC goals and how to communicate effectively with their child's teacher.

Measures of key outcomes will include observations of behavior in the classroom conducted by observers naïve to group assignment or study hypotheses, academic performance outcomes, parent and teacher ratings of functioning, and IEP goal attainment. Primary measures of outcome will be analyzed using ANCOVA procedures. Secondary measures will include teacher ratings of ADHD and disruptive behavior/impairment. Additional analyses will investigate moderators (grade level, comorbid aggressive behavior, IEP quality). It is further hypothesized that classroom environment and fidelity of implementation at school/home will mediate outcomes (i.e., classroom climate, the fidelity of teacher monitoring/feedback regarding behavior, consistency of parent-implemented consequences at home).

Inclusion criteria

• Current Individualized Education program
• Diagnosis of ADHD
• Enrolled in Grades Kindergarten - 6

Exclusion criteria

• IQ < 70
• Home-schooled
• Enrolled in a classroom with another study participant
• Autism spectrum disorder