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Abstract: 

Although there are interventions that are empirically supported for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Owens et al., in press), there are no empirically supported psychosocial interventions for adolescents with the disorder. Given the developmental changes associated with adolescence, the increased access to high-risk activities such as substance use, romantic relationships, driving, and large shifts in school and social contexts, best practices for children with ADHD do not directly translate into best practices for affected adolescents. For example, some of the interventions with the most evidence of effectiveness for children, such as time-outs and token economies, seem unlikely to be equally effective for adolescents. A reliance on behavioral principles may be consistent across youth of all ages, but finding effective methods of applying these principles to adolescents is a challenging area of ADHD intervention development and evaluation research. This article begins with a discussion of adolescence and ADHD, with an emphasis on the impairment specific to this developmental period and the implications for treatment. It then presents a brief overview of the impact of ADHD on academic, social, and family functioning, followed by a review and discussion of the literature related to psychosocial interventions targeting each area of impairment. The article concludes with a review of multimodal treatments and some conclusions about the status of the research literature on psychosocial treatment development for adolescents with ADHD.

Keywords: ADHD; adolescents

Affiliations:  1: Ohio University Department of Psychology; 2: Ohio University Department of Psychology.