Enhancing IEPs of Children With ADHD Using Daily Report Cards
Condition: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
MeSH terms: Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The purpose of this study are to determine the effectiveness of the daily report card (DRC)
      approach to supporting children with ADHD in special education in schools compared to a
      business as usual condition. Children in the study will be randomly assigned to business as
      usual, or to receive a DRC based on Individualized Education Program goals and objectives,
      across the school year. All children will have progress carefully monitored across the school
      year.
    

Detailed description: 
      This study will investigate the efficacy of an intervention to enhance the special education
      supports used for children with ADHD (i.e., the manner in which goals/objectives on the IEP
      are monitored and addressed; targeting of social/behavioral goals).

      The purpose of this proposed study is to provide evidence for the efficacy of using a daily
      report card intervention (DRC) as a means of linking the child with ADHD's IEP goals and
      objectives to his/her daily functioning in the classroom environment. A Goal 2 study was
      recently completed to develop and provide preliminary support for the DRC intervention for
      this purpose (Fabiano et al., 2010). The proposed investigation will be a multi-site study
      conducted in elementary schools throughout the Western New York and South Florida area.
      Participants will be 216 children (grades K-6), who have been diagnosed with ADHD and have an
      IEP (e.g., Specific Learning Disability, Emotionally Disturbed, Other Health Impaired).

      In the proposed study, the efficacy of the DRC as an enhancement to children with ADHD's IEPs
      will be investigated in an experimental study. Children will be randomly assigned on the
      individual level to a condition where a behavioral consultant works with the child's
      teacher(s) to construct a DRC, implement it, and monitor it, or to an IEP only, school as
      usual (SAU) condition, where teachers will attempt to meet the IEP goals and objectives as
      they typically would. A DRC is an operationalized list of target behaviors (e.g., "completes
      reading assignments with 80% accuracy or better," "has no office time outs during the day")
      that are evaluated each day by the teacher. The DRC is used as a means of providing the child
      and parent feedback on progress on a daily basis, and it doubles as a mechanism teachers can
      use to track and monitor the child's behavior and progress on key functional domains. The DRC
      can be easily linked to IEP goals and objectives, providing a bridge between the IEP and the
      child's daily functioning in the classroom. Parents will also be taught in parenting meetings
      how to reward their child at home for successful attainment of DRC goals and how to
      communicate effectively with their child's teacher.

      Measures of key outcomes will include observations of behavior in the classroom conducted by
      observers naïve to group assignment or study hypotheses, academic performance outcomes,
      parent and teacher ratings of functioning, and IEP goal attainment. Primary measures of
      outcome will be analyzed using ANCOVA procedures. Secondary measures will include teacher
      ratings of ADHD and disruptive behavior/impairment. Additional analyses will investigate
      moderators (grade level, comorbid aggressive behavior, IEP quality). It is further
      hypothesized that classroom environment and fidelity of implementation at school/home will
      mediate outcomes (i.e., classroom climate, the fidelity of teacher monitoring/feedback
      regarding behavior, consistency of parent-implemented consequences at home).
    

Intervention name(s): Daily Report Card; School as Usual
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Other
Intervention description(s): Students assigned to the DRC group will have a consultant assigned to the student for the duration of the school year. The consultant will work with the child's primary special education teacher (or regular education teacher if the child spends the majority of his or her day mainstreamed) to establish a DRC over the course of three consultation visits. The How to Establish a Daily Report Card manual contains a standard DRC instruction packet that is provided to teachers to explain the rationale of the DRC, procedures for creating, modifying, and evaluating the DRC, procedures for parents to create home-based rewards for DRC performance, and information on trouble-shooting.; The Individualized Education Program will be implemented as usual, with no additional study-related supports.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: Random assignment to intervention group or business as usual group.
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Treatment