ADHD can be treated with innovative approaches

March 7, 2022

Parenting the Active Child, now called Parents Empowering Kids, focused on children aged eight to 12 with ADHD. This program aimed to help parents notice and reward good behaviour; ignore challenging behaviours (such as whining and complaining); use time outs effectively; prepare children for transitions; and collaborate with schools. Parents were given a handbook, a video and a behaviour chart, which were supplemented with weekly telephone sessions with a coach. Parents completed the program in slightly less than seven months.

The Parenting the Active Child led to benefits for children. Approximately 65% of intervention children were diagnosis free at 5 1⁄4-month follow-up, compared to 40% of controls. The high remission rate for controls may have been due, in part, to these children receiving mental health treatments outside of the study — such as behavioural interventions — at significantly higher rates than intervention children. Despite this, intervention children still had more than 2.7 times the odds of not having an ADHD diagnosis by final follow-up. For more information, see Vol. 14, No. 2 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.