A multimethod intervention for social skills deficits in children with ADHD and their parents

A social skills intervention program was implemented for 5 boys with Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder and their parents. The child-based intervention was comprised of 10 weekly sessions focusing on target skills in the areas of social entry, maintaining interactions, and solving problems. All subjects also were on stimulant medication. A parent group met separately but simultaneously with the children's group to teach parents skills to help their children with their social problems. Parents were taught the skills of debriefing, problem solving, and goal setting. A multiple baseline across behaviors design was used for child and parent subjects. Child-subjects demonstrated positive changes in analogue observations; however, experimental control was not evidenced in all cases. Parents' skills in debriefing, problem solving and goal setting also improved, as demonstrated on home-based audio tape assessments. All subjects reported improvements of at least one standard deviation on self-report social skills rating scales, and parent and teacher reports also suggested general improvement for most subjects. In general, behavioral changes were considered to be socially valid, and all parent and child subjects viewed the social skills interventions very positively.