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אם אתם חדשים כאן, אני ממליצה לכם לעיין בסדרת המצגות המופיעה בטור הימני, שכותרתה "משכל ויכולות קוגניטיביות".

Welcome! This blog is intended to provide assessment resources for Educational and other psychologists.

The material is CHC - oriented , but not entirely so.

The blog features selected papers, presentations made by me and other materials.

If you're new here, I suggest reading the presentation series in the right hand column – "intelligence and cognitive abilities".

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Sunday, July 20, 2014

A structured tool for observing children in class and assessing ADHD



As a result of my team's request  to work on intake processes I found Prof. Stephanie 
McConaughy's   book and papers,  including this:

Standardized Observational Assessment of Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder Combined and Predominantly
Inattentive Subtypes. II. Classroom Observations
McConaughy S. H., Ivanova, M Y., Antshel, K.,  Eiraldi, R . B. and Dumenci, L. School Psychology Review, 2009, Volume 38, No. 3, pp. 362–381

This is one of two papers about DOF – Direct Observation Form developed by McConaughy and Achenbach in 2009.  McConaughy is also one of the Achenbach test developers.

During a 10 minute observation time, the observer writes a narrative description of the child's behavior.  The observer also rates, during the last 5 seconds of each minute, the degree to which the child is on task.  Immediately after the observation, the observer rates the child on 89 items, using a four point scale ranging from "no occurrence "  to "definite occurrence with severe intensity, high frequency, or 3 or more minutes total duration".  The items can be, for example: "Argues", "Doesn't concentrate or doesn't pay attention for long", "Doesn’t sit still, restless or hyperactive", "Underactive, slow moving or lacks energy" and so on.

The 89 items form 5 syndromes (Sluggish cognitive tempo, Immature/withdrawn, Attention problems, Intrusive, and Oppositional).  There is a DSM oriented ADHD scale with subscales for inattention and hyperactivity – impulsivity.  There is also a scale for on task behavior.  The idea is that the psychologist will observe the child several times for 10 minutes - on different days and at different times.  Every item score is averaged across the observations and thus the scale scores are obtained.

Six to eleven year old children participated in the research described in this paper.  These were children with a DSM4TR diagnosis of ADHD-COMBINED (having both inattention and hyperactive – impulsive symptoms), ADHD – INATTENTIVE (having mostly inattentive symptoms), children referred to the school psychologist not because of ADHD and a control group.  The observers didn't know to which group the child belongs.  All children had an IQ 
score of above 80, no health problems and none of them were taking medication for ADHD.

A piquant fact is that the parents of referred children (for ADHD or for other reasons) were paid 15$ for their children's participation.  The parents of the control group were paid 50$ for their children's participation and the teachers were paid 15$ for completing forms and allowing the observations.

Since the findings about the DOF's ability to differentiate between the ADHD-COMBINED and the ADHD –INATTENTIVE groups, and between the two ADHD groups and the children referred not for ADHD are complex, I won't describe them here.  I will only describe the differences between the ADHD groups and the control group.

The children in the ADHD – COMBINED group got higher (worse) scores than the control group
 on the general ADHD scale, and also on these scales: hyperactivity – impulsivity, inattention, 
intrusive and oppositional.

The ADHD – INATTENTION group got higher scores than the control group on sluggish 
cognitive tempo, attention problems and inattention. 

Children of both ADHD groups got higher scores than the control group on "on task" behavior.

It's an interesting tool to try.


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