20th Annual Meeting of the APS Northwest Section
Volume 64, Number 9
Thursday–Saturday, May 16–18, 2019;
Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington
Session E1: Poster Session I
5:00 PM,
Friday, May 17, 2019
SMATE
Room: Lobby
Abstract: E1.00028 : ADHD Subtypes and Symptom Severity as Predictors of Motivation Intervention Outcomes.
Preview Abstract
Abstract
Author:
Yuya Xu
(University of California, Irvine)
Collaboration:
Working Memory, and Plasticity Lab
This research project studies whether the ADHD subtype can predict the
effectiveness of a motivational intervention for children with ADHD. The
participants included parents and the 59 children aged 7-14 (mean age $=$
10.13 years, female $=$ 28.8{\%}) officially diagnosed with ADHD. Children's
ADHD diagnoses were determined by the parent report (ADHD C $=$ 21, ADHD IA
$=$ 22, ADHD subtype not specified $=$ 16). Children participated in four
small group motivational lessons where they were taught about growth
mindset, neuroplasticity, coping strategies targeting frustration, and the
potential of unique creative abilities of the individuals with ADHD. These
lessons served to improve the children's beliefs about the malleability of
the intelligence, personal self-efficacy and their emotional control
abilities. At pre and post assessments, children completed two challenging
tasks to evaluate their persistence --- a puzzle-building activity and a
trivia questionnaire. Here we investigate whether children with ADHD
combined type and children with ADHD predominantly inattentive type differed
in their persistence from pre to post assessments. Analysis revealed no
significant differences in persistence improvement between the ADHD-C and
ADHD-IA groups on the puzzle task (p$=$.175) and the trivia task (p$=$.855),
which suggests that ADHD subtype may not be a meaningful predictor of the
effectiveness of motivational intervention. However, future analyses will
account for missing data by using parents' reports on the BRIEF2 and Conners
Parents Rating Scales which can be used to distinguish whether a child's
symptoms are indicative of ADHD-C or ADHD-IA. Understanding whether ADHD
subtype is predictor of intervention effectiveness will allow us to
determine for whom the motivational intervention is most effective..