Behavioral therapy, alone or along with ADHD medication, can provide behavior management skills to the child or adolescent and the parent (i.e., can be an effective treatment).Behavioral therapy in children can take many forms, but it usually involves improving a particular behavior, for instance, homework and sports skills. One type of behavioral therapy involves summer treatment programs (STPs). STPs are rigorous programs that last six through nine weeks and focus on a child/adolescent’s deficient behaviors (Fabiano, Schatz, & Pelham, 2014). Because particular behaviors in their daily activities are targeted, positive results are seen in the child/adolescent (Fabiano et al., 2014). The children and adolescents are placed in groups with children …show more content…
In addition, children/teens obtain a daily report card (DRC) and they can also receive prizes for the good behavior. If a child/teens misbehaves, then they go to time out but can lessen the time if they have good behavior (Fabiano et al., 2014). Parents are also involved in STPs, which is known as behavioral parent training (BPT); BPT is an evidence-based behavioral treatment (Fabiano et al., 2014; Merrill et al., 2014). They attend weekly parenting trainings that teach them to reinforce behavioral strategies, which is important because parents can continue the work done at the STP and apply it to other settings such as the home and playground (Fabiano et al., …show more content…
Medication can be either stimulants (e.g., Adderall, Ritalin) or nonstimulants (e.g., Strattera). When children take stimulants, majority of them see results immediately; however, the various side effects may lead to stopping the stimulant (CHADD, 2017). Nonstimulants have less side effects, but they take longer to take effect (CHADD, 20017). Behavioral therapy targets problematic behaviors in children and teaches them social skills that can be applied outside the therapy setting (Fabiano et al., 2014; Gerber et al., 2012), for example, sports (O’Connor et al., 2014). Most behavioral therapies apply response cost token (RCT) strategies, which rewards points to the child or adolescent for good behavior and takes away points for bad behavior; points can be exchanged for rewards, which provides an incentive for the children and teens to behave appropriately (Fabiano et al., 2014; Gerber et al., 2012, Merrill et al., 2017). Application outside the therapy setting is made possible through behavioral parent training, or BPT, which teaches parents about reinforcement of behavioral strategies (Fabiano et al., 2014; Gerber et al., 2012; Merrill et al., 2014).While evidence-based treatments have been widely used, mindfulness has gained the attention of ADHD researchers. Mindfulness is meditation that focuses on the present (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Children and adoslecents who have