Publications by authors named "Amy R Altszuler"
Article Synopsis
- A comprehensive review of treatment research for ADHD in children and adolescents over the past 50 years analyzed 126 studies involving 10,604 participants in the U.S. !*
- Reporting on participant demographics revealed that most studies focused on White, non-Hispanic boys, with significant underrepresentation of girls, racial minorities, and Hispanic/Latine youth. !*
- The analysis also highlights an increase over time in the representation of girls and minorities in ADHD research, while suggesting the need for better demographic reporting and addressing research gaps.!*
Mindfulness as an Adjunct to Behavior Modification for Elementary-aged Children with ADHD.
Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol
December 2022
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a chronic neurodevelopmental disorder defined by pervasive symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Furthermore, children with ADHD show marked deficits in executive functioning (EF) such as attention, effortful control, and behavior, and are more likely to have poor self-regulatory skills. Current evidence-based interventions for children with ADHD include behavioral treatment (BT), psychopharmacological treatment, and their combination.
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- - The study aimed to assess the quality of life (QoL) for mothers of adolescents, both with and without a history of childhood ADHD, finding that mothers of children with ADHD reported significantly worse QoL than those without.
- - Maternal depression, adolescent age, ADHD status, and discipline issues were identified as key predictors of lower QoL, with ADHD being the most significant factor, resulting in a loss of approximately 1.96 Quality Adjusted Life-Years (QALYs) over a child's lifetime.
- - The findings highlight the substantial health and financial impacts on caregivers of children with ADHD, indicating a potential loss of $98,000 to $196,000, underscoring the need for healthcare systems to
Article Synopsis
- - The study aimed to assess if stimulant medication (specifically OROS-MPH) enhances learning in children with ADHD during small-group classroom instruction.
- - 173 children aged 7-12 participated in a crossover trial where they were alternately given either the medication or a placebo while receiving daily instruction in science and vocabulary.
- - While medication significantly improved classroom behavior and productivity, it did not lead to better learning outcomes in terms of the content taught during the sessions.
Mind-Wandering and Childhood ADHD: Experimental Manipulations across Laboratory and Naturalistic Settings.
Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol
September 2022
The conceptual overlap between mind-wandering and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-related impairments is considerable, yet little experimental research examining this overlap among children is available. The current study aims to experimentally manipulate mind-wandering among children with and without ADHD and examine effects on task performance. Participants were 59 children with ADHD and 55 age-matched controls.
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- Individuals with ADHD tend to favor immediate rewards over delayed larger ones, highlighting challenges in choice impulsivity (CI).
- This study explored how OROS-MPH, a form of methylphenidate, affects CI, working memory (WM), and time perception in children aged 7-12 with ADHD.
- Results showed that OROS-MPH improved both CI and WM but did not impact time perception, and no significant links were found between CI and WM improvements, suggesting further research on other factors is needed.
Objective: To inform the scope of future systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and treatment outcome studies, this review aims to describe the extent of the evidence for psychosocial interventions for children and adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, with particular attention to specific types of interventions, targets of outcome assessment, and risk of bias.
Method: A comprehensive search of relevant databases (i.e.
Decades of research support 3 interventions for youth with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): behavioral intervention, stimulant medication, and their combination. However, professional organizations have long disagreed regarding the best approach for implementing evidence-based interventions for ADHD in practice. The accompanying Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics guidelines for complex ADHD provide a framework for initiating treatment with behavioral intervention and adding stimulant medication as necessary, resulting in combined/multimodal treatment for many, if not most, children.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe long-term financial outcome of children diagnosed with ADHD.
J Consult Clin Psychol
February 2020
Objective: Characterize the early trajectories of financial functioning in adults with history of childhood ADHD and use these trajectories to project earnings and savings over the lifetime.
Method: Data were drawn from a prospective case-control study (PALS) following participants with a rigorous diagnosis of ADHD during childhood (N = 364) and demographically matched controls (N = 240) for nearly 20 years. Participants and their parents reported on an array of financial outcomes when participants were 25 and 30 years old.
Research suggests that children with conduct problems (CP) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits show a diminished response to behavior therapy, perhaps due to a reward-oriented, punishment insensitive learning style. Children with CP and CU may benefit from personalizing behavioral treatment for them by emphasizing rewards and de-emphasizing punishments. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of 46 children (78.
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- The study aimed to quantify the economic burden on families raising children with ADHD, utilizing a longitudinal sample from western Pennsylvania.
- Parents reported significant costs associated with raising their children, averaging $15,036 per child with ADHD compared to $2,848 for those without.
- The findings indicate that these economic burdens result in job changes and decreased work efficiency for parents, highlighting the necessity for interventions to alleviate these challenges associated with ADHD.
Functional Outcomes of Young Adults with Childhood ADHD: A Latent Profile Analysis.
J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol
September 2020
Article Synopsis
- Adults with childhood ADHD show various levels of impairment in key life areas like education, work, and relationships, and researchers used latent profile analysis to explore these patterns among young adults.
- The study analyzed data from 317 individuals, confirming five distinct profiles of impairment related to ADHD that include different combinations of substance use, criminal behavior, and social issues.
- All identified subgroups had significant impairments compared to peers without ADHD, with no group showing complete absence of impairment; moreover, nearly all had difficulties in social, educational, and financial domains.
Article Synopsis
- Organization, Time Management, and Planning (OTP) issues significantly contribute to academic struggles in adolescents with ADHD, and parents have a crucial role in helping address these problems.
- A study involving 299 adolescents identified four distinct patterns of parental OTP management: Parental Control, Parent-Teen Collaboration, Homework Assistance, and Uninvolved, with the Uninvolved group being the largest at 40.5%.
- Furthermore, parents using ineffective OTP strategies tended to have higher levels of mental health issues, and their management strategies did not correlate with the adolescents' OTP skills or GPAs, suggesting that parents' approaches are not solely based on their teens' academic performance.
Article Synopsis
- The study focused on the effectiveness of behavioral sports training, medication, and their combination in enhancing sports abilities in youth with ADHD, involving 73 participants aged 5-12.
- Implementing a 3-week program featuring badminton, researchers found that sports training significantly improved skills, knowledge, and behaviors compared to recreational play, while medication further enhanced rule-following and sportsmanship.
- The findings suggest that skills training should be prioritized over medication alone, recommending that medication support structured sports training for youths exhibiting challenging behaviors in sports settings.
Improving homework performance among children with ADHD: A randomized clinical trial.
J Consult Clin Psychol
February 2017
Article Synopsis
- The study explores how different treatments (behavioral, psychostimulant, and combined) affect homework performance in children with ADHD, who often struggle academically due to their condition.* -
- Involving 75 children aged 5-12, results showed that the behavioral treatment focused on homework significantly improved homework completion and accuracy compared to a control group.* -
- While behavioral treatment showed strong positive effects, the medication alone had minimal impact on homework performance, highlighting the importance of tailored behavioral strategies for helping students with ADHD.*
This study used data from the Pittsburgh ADHD Longitudinal Study (PALS) to evaluate financial outcomes of young adults (YA) with ADHD relative to comparisons. Participants for this study included 309 individuals who had been diagnosed with ADHD (DSM-III-R or DSM-IV) in childhood and 208 comparison YA without childhood ADHD diagnoses (total N = 517) who were followed through age 25. Participants were predominately male (88 %) and Caucasian (84 %).
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- This study aimed to create and validate a user-friendly tool called the Adolescent Academic Problems Checklist (AAPC) for evaluating academic behaviors in adolescents with ADHD.
- The research involved 324 adolescents diagnosed with ADHD and assessed their academic problems through reports from parents, teachers, and the adolescents themselves.
- Findings showed that the AAPC is effective, with parents and teachers providing valuable, complementary insights about time management and planning issues often faced by these adolescents, emphasizing the need for thorough assessments before treatment.