Behavioral Therapy study

In Saskia van der Oord's study, "Does brief, clinically based, intensive multimodal behavior therapy enhance the effects of methylphenidate in children with ADHD?" he proposes to study if behavioral therapy along side medicine really does help those individuals who have or who are affected by ADHD better control and understand the symptoms. Fifty children with diagnosed ADHD between the age of eight and twelve were randomly treated with methylphenidate or with methylphenidate combined with 10 weeks of multimodal behavior therapy. The multimodal behavior therapy consisted of a child and parent behavioral therapy and a teacher behavioral training. Assessments included parent, teacher and child ratings of ADHD symptoms, oppositional and conduct behavior, social skills, parenting stress, anxiety and self-worth. Both treatments showed great outcomes but there was not a show of diffrence between the two experimental groups. There was no great evidence that signified that the behavioral therapy made a big diffrence to the treatment. This study concluded that behavioral therapy should not be treated to diagnosed ADHD children with the notion that it will make their symptoms better because their experiment did not show that. Howeve I feel that the behavioral therapy is not just used to make the symptoms better but to educate the parents, teacher, and child of the condition. Not so that they can significantly change the symptoms but that they may understand the condition better and how to accuratly deal with situations that may arise that need some help in how to handle them.

*Source
Saskia van der Oord, Pier J.M. Prins, Jaap Oosterlaan, Paul M.G. Emmelkamp. (2007). Does brief, clinically based, intensive multimodal behavior therapy enhance the effects of methylphenidate in children with ADHD? European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 16(1), 48-57. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from Research Library database. (Document ID: 1259512821).