Medical Treatments
Communication
Assesments
DSM-IV

Communication

As adults, and having gone through it ourselves, we know that adolescence is a challenging time in the life of a teen. This developmental period fluctuates from physiological, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional changes. However for the adolescent diagnosed to have ADHD, these challenges are exponentially magnified. As a result, according to Barkley (1998), “ADHD teens suffer academic failure, social isolation, depression, and low self-esteem and become embroiled in many unpleasant conflicts . . .” (p. 413).         

          1. Give the adolescent more immediate feedback

             and consequences.

          2. Give the adolescent more frequent feedback.

          3. Use more powerful consequences.

          4. Use incentives before punishment.

          5. Strive for consistency.

          6. Act, don’t yak.

          7. Plan ahead for problem situations.

          8. Keep a disability perspective.

          9. Don’t personalize the adolescent’s problems or

             disorder.

          10. Practice forgiveness (p. 434-436).

1. Focus on teaching adolescents a set of skills

          and adaptive behaviors to replace the

          problems.

       2. Include academic performance rather than just

           on-task behavior because improvement in

           classroom deportment is often not paralleled

           by improvements in academic functioning.

        3. Include common problem situations such as

           transitions between classes and activities,

           recess and lunch (p. 461).

      1. Rules and instructions provided to ADHD

         adolescents must be clear, brief, and often

         delivered through more visible and external

          modes of presentation.

      2. Consequences used to manage the behavior of

          ADHD adolescents must be delivered swiftly and

           more immediately.

      3. Consequences must be delivered more

          frequently, not just immediately to ADHD

          adolescents.

      4. The types of consequences used with ADHD

           adolescents must often be of a higher

           magnitude or more powerful.

      5. An appropriate and often richer degree of

          incentives or motivational parameters must be

          provided within a setting or task to reinforce

          appropriate behavior before punishment can be

          implemented.

       6. Those reinforcers or, particularly, rewards

           that are employed must be changed or rotated

           more frequently with ADHD adolescents.

       7. Anticipation is the key with ADHD children (p.462-463).