Interventions offered

The clinicians at the Center for Management of ADHD at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have years of experience assessing and providing ongoing, comprehensive treatment for children and adolescents with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Treatment includes behavioral therapy, parent education and support, and medication management.

Our experts also work with parents and teachers to help them better understand the condition and develop strategies for effectively interacting with children with ADHD.

Behavioral interventions

ADHD group treatments

Children do not attend the ADHD Bootcamp and Family School Success groups, described below. Instead, parents work with their children at home to apply the strategies they learn to address their child’s difficulties. In addition, parents learn how to work with their child’s teacher to help manage problems at school.

Because the skills taught in each week’s session build upon the information presented in previous sessions, attendance at group sessions is very important.

ADHD Bootcamp

Offered several times throughout the year

The ADHD Bootcamp program is a four-session parent group program designed for the parents of children (ages 5 to 11 years) who are newly diagnosed with ADHD.

The purpose of the bootcamp program is to provide education about ADHD and its treatments, facilitate sharing among parents and promote parents' empowerment to navigate the health, mental health and educational systems to obtain needed services for their children.

ADHD Bootcamp includes intervention components that are solidly based on scientific research about how to treat ADHD effectively. These include parenting strategies, approaches for collaborating with school professionals and useful information about whether to consider a trial of medication. Interested families must be evaluated by providers at CHOP to determine eligibility.

Family School Success

Offered several times throughout the year

The Family School Success (FSS) program is an eight-session group parent training program designed to address the home and school difficulties of children with ADHD (ages 5 to 11 years). The FSS program is an evidence-based treatment that uses a behavioral parent training approach with a special focus on strengthening parent-child, family-school and student-teacher relationships. Behavioral parent training focuses on:

• Positive parenting approaches, including prevention strategies to set children up for success
• Frequent use of positive reinforcement
• Ignoring frequent undesirable child behaviors
• Strategic use of punishment

The FSS program also includes strategies to establish a strong working relationship between parents and teachers and problem-solving techniques to address children’s difficulties in school.

The FSS program has been shown to be effective in a large-scale randomized controlled trial conducted through the CHOP ADHD Center. In addition, the FSS program is similar to other proven combined behavior parent training programs and school behavioral interventions.

Interested families must be evaluated by CHOP providers to determine eligibility.

Organizational Skills Training Program

Organizational skills can be treated through behavioral parent training interventions. Alternatively, children and youth with ADHA can learn new skills to help them improve organization, time management and planning.

In this intervention, children are trained in skills for tracking assignments, managing materials, managing time and planning for long-term assignments. In addition, parents are trained to support their child's learning and use of the new skills between sessions.

This intervention is based on the Organizational Skills Training for Children with ADHD treatment developed by nationally recognized experts.

We offer this program in several formats:

• We have previously offered this treatment in a 12-session group format for middle school students. However, this is not currently being offered. We will update our website when we are able to offer it again.
• We offer this treatment in a 16-session small group format for third through fifth graders at the beginning of the school year as part of post-doctoral training for a research study.
• We offer this program individually to students in third through 12th grades on a limited basis as available appointments allow.

ADHD family treatments

Family behavior therapy

Family therapy services at the Center for ADHD are available to provide parents and caregivers with individualized training in evidence-based techniques for addressing the problems commonly experienced by children with ADHD. These problems include behavior problems at home and school, academic difficulties, homework problems, peer relationship problems, and self-esteem issues.

For children ages 5 to 11 years with ADHD, we encourage parents to participate in our Family School Success parent group program (described above), as we have clear evidence for its effectiveness.

Family therapy services — including individual sessions as appropriate with the child or adolescent in addition to sessions where parents are involved — are available in the following situations:

• The provider determines the child has a complex set of conditions and requires an individualized approach to care.
• The child is dealing with additional mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression that need to be the primary focus of treatment (rather than their ADHD).
• There are complicating factors in the family that are difficult to address in group settings.
• An adolescent and their parents need assistance in managing ADHD and associated problems. At present, we do not offer group treatments for families of adolescents with ADHD.

Family therapy is a time-limited ADHD-focused treatment with the goal of teaching parents and children or adolescents the skills needed to cope with their difficulties independently. A large body of research supports the effectiveness of family behavior therapy for children with ADHD.