Key Issues Relevant to the Efficacy of Behavioral Treatment for ADHD
Share
Study at a glance
- Area
- ADHD & Attention
- Study type
- Review & meta-analysis
- Authors
- Chronis-Tuscano A, Chacko A, Barkley R
- Journal
- American Journal of Psychiatry
- Year
- 2013
- Population
- Children
- Protocol
- behavioral treatment (parent training, classroom interventions)
Key findings
- Argues functional impairment is a more socially valid outcome than ADHD symptom ratings
- Grouping behavioral parent training and classroom interventions with weakly supported approaches such as social skills training may understate their effects
- Rating outcomes in a different setting from where treatment was given, such as teacher ratings after home-based treatment, may miss effects
- Supports the meta-analysis's call for active comparison conditions and more rigorous outcome studies
In a letter to the editor, the authors challenge a meta-analysis by Sonuga-Barke and colleagues that found limited evidence for behavioral treatments for ADHD. They argue that functional impairment, not symptom ratings, is the outcome that matters most, that lumping diverse nonmedication approaches together understates well-established treatments such as behavioral parent training and classroom interventions, and that outcomes should be rated blind in the setting where treatment happens. The authors conclude that more than 40 years of evidence supports behavioral interventions.