Development and evaluation of an ADHD teacher group training--a pilot study

In the introduction is shown that no controlled studies of teacher training programs in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) have been published in German research literature as yet in spite of high demand for educational inservice training. The aim of the present study is the development and evaluation of a two-step ADHD teacher group training. In step 1 a group training (12 h) was performed with 18 advisory teachers. The curriculum included ADHD theory, contingency management and "antecedent" TEACCH-oriented school-based interventions (Schopler 1997; Bregman and Gerdtz 1997). In step 2 then a subsample of 6 advisory teachers supervised 10 classroom teachers of 11 primary school students (mean age 8.6 yrs.) with ADHD symptoms, who were assigned to two experimental groups. The classroom teachers of the Standard Treatment Group (n=5 students) received the basic module "ADHD theory and school-based interventions" (6 h), the teachers of the Intensive Treatment Group (n=6 students) received the same basic module plus the module "Student-related training in Contingency Management" (in total 14h). The group training process was evaluated by teacher satisfaction ratings and knowledge test. The training effect on student behavior was evaluated by teacher ratings within a two-group-pre-post-follow-up design. The main results are: (a) The group training process was mostly evaluated favorably; knowledge increased significantly; (b) ADHD symptoms were reduced significantly in both treatment groups, with stronger and sustained improvement of problem behaviors and adaptive functioning in the Intensive Treatment Group. These findings provide some consistent evidence, that classroom behaviors of children with ADHD symptoms can be improved substantially by a teacher mediator training approach.