School Mental Health Interventions and Assessment for Students with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a disorder characterized by executive functioning deficits that often result in impairment related to the social and academic demands of school. Students with ADHD are likely to receive poor grades, experience disciplinary actions, fall behind academically, and be rejected by their peers. The school-based services most commonly provided to students with ADHD involve reducing expectations. This is unfortunately given that schools are an ideal setting in which children and adolescents could receive evidence-based interventions designed to improve functioning and promote competencies. This chapter provides an overview of evidence-based assessment and intervention services for students with ADHD that can be implemented in a school setting. Schools are an ideal setting for the assessment of ADHD. In school, students interact with multiple adults who can provide their perspectives on the student’s symptoms and impairment at a given time-point and across time. School professionals can directly observe the student in a variety of authentic environments including structured and unstructured settings during a typical school day. In this chapter, we discuss evidence-based assessment practices related to screening, comprehensive evaluation, and progress-monitoring that can be implemented in the school setting. The accessibility and authenticity of the school setting also make it ideal for implementing evidence-based interventions for ADHD. Students can receive services from school personnel, multiple times per week, using a variety of techniques that can be implemented in meaningful academic and social situations. In this chapter, we cover several school-based behavioral interventions that are commonly used with elementary-aged students. This section is followed by a discussion of training interventions that have the strongest evidence for producing improvements in functioning for secondary-aged students. This chapter concludes with a discussion of future directions for the development and dissemination of school-based services for students with ADHD.