Acquisition and Retention of Math Facts in Students with ADHD

1. Acquisition and Retention of Math Facts in Students with ADHD • Introduction • Overview of ADHD • Common childhood disorder impairing children across behavioral, academic, and social domains (Barkley, 2006; DuPaul & Stoner, 2003) • Rates of inattention, hyperactivity, and/or impulsivity at rates well above nondisabled peers (American Psychological Association, 2000) • Neuropsychological Impairments in Students with ADHD • Dual Pathway Hypothesis • Executive Functioning Deficits (EFD) • Planning ability, organizational skills, behavioral inhibition, verbal and nonverbal working memory • EFD independently related to hyperactive impulsive symptoms • Delay Aversion (DEL) • Tendency to prefer immediate gratification through smaller items than from larger items removed in time • DEL independently related to inattentive symptoms • Biederman et al. (2004) • EFD is a significant predictor of worsening academic achievement in students with ADHD • Students with ADHD and EFD are twice as likely to be retained than students with ADHD and no EFD • EffectiveInterventions for ADHD • Effective treatments of ADHD symptoms • Pharmacological and Behavioral (MTA Cooperative Group, 1999, 2004) • However, these treatments do not remediate underlying skills deficits • Academic Interventions for individuals with ADHD • Computer Assisted Instruction (Clarfield & Stoner, 2005; Mautone, DuPaul, & Jitendra, 2005; Ota & DuPaul, 2002) • Class-wide peer tutoring (Greenwood, Delquadri, & Carta, 1988; Plumer & Stoner, 2005) • State of the Field in Drill Instruction • Incremental Rehearsal (IR; Tucker, 1989) • Shown to be more effective than other drill techniques on both acquisition and retention of material (MacQuarrie et al., 2002) • Nist and Joeseph (2008) • Acknowledges the importance of considering effectiveness, efficiency, and generalizability • Compared IR, an interspersal method with a more challenging drill ratio, and traditional flash card administration (TA) • IR was found to be the most effective drill instruction technique • TA was found to be most efficient • Summary • Math fact fluency is essential for continued academic success • Effective and feasible to implement interventions for students with ADHD are needed • IR is an effective intervention that employs CBA-ID principles to address skill building • IR’s fast-paced, reinforcing format addresses difficulties with EFD and DEL • IR contains frequent OTR, which has the added benefit of decreasing disruptive behavior and increasing time on-task • Learning rates may differ with a shorter, consistent session length Sean M. O’Dell and George J. DuPaul • Research Questions and Hypotheses • Is IR a more effective technique than TA in the acquisition of math facts for 2nd grade students with ADHD? • IR will be effective in teaching math facts to students with ADHD • Is IR a more effective technique than TA for the retention of facts acquired for students with ADHD? • IR will lead to high rates of retention of math facts in students with ADHD • Do arithmetic combinations acquired during IR generalize to existing course content better than combinations learned during TA? • IR will lead to higher accuracy of responding on AIMSweb concepts and applications CBM probes • Method • Participants and Setting • Two 2nd grade students with ADHD • Bill • Rich • Both 7 year old students enrolled in 2nd grade public school classrooms • Screening for ADHD and Selection of Participants • Informed consent for screening • Parent ratings of ADHD symptoms (ADHD-IV; DuPaul et al., 1998) • Teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms (ADHD-IV; DuPaul et al., 1998) • Parent diagnostic interview for ADHD and commonly comorbid disorders (C-DISC; Shaffer et al., 2000) • Informed consent for participation • Experimental Procedure Overview • Assessment of Knowns and Unknowns • Alternating treatments single subject design • 7 sessions IR, 7 sessions TA • Intervention consists of 2-3 sessions every week for 10 weeks • 10 minute sessions • Early termination of session will occur with 3 or more minutes of consecutive off-task behavior within a session • Follow-up measures of retention rates of math facts • 7, 14, 30 days after end of each intervention • Treatment acceptability will be assessed at the end of follow-up for each participant • Modified Children’s Intervention Rating Profile • Data Analyses • Visual inspection of graphed data for IR and TA • Percentage of non-overlapping data points • Slope and Variability of data points • Number of math facts acquired during intervention • Number of math facts retained at each follow-up point • Comparison of modified CIRP data for IR and TA Facts Acquired • Preliminary Results • Bill • After 4 sessions for each condition, Bill has acquired 7 facts in the IR condition and 6 facts in the TA condition • IR • Steadily increasing slope, with Bill learning at a rate of 1.75 facts per session • Percentage of nonoverlapping data 100% • TA • Less consistent slope, with Bill learning at a rate of 1.5 facts per session • Percentage of nonoverlapping data 75% • Rich • After 2 sessions for each condition, Rich has acquired 5 facts in the IR condition and 4 facts in the TA condition • IR • Steadily increasing slope, with Rich learning at a rate of 2.5 facts per session • Percentage of nonoverlapping data 100% • TA • Steadily increasing slope, with Bill learning at a rate of 2 facts per session • Percentage of nonoverlapping data 100% Rich • Continued Data Collection • Recruit 1-3 more participants • Continue data collection for participants who are already enrolled • Obtain and report generalizability data for all subjects Session For reprints, references, or additional information, please contact: Sean O’Dell- smo307@lehigh.edu