Effects of Stimulant Medication Treatment on Mothers' and Children's Attributions for the Behavior of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Participants were 55 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were receiving ongoing treatment with stimulant medications and their mothers, and 31 children with ADHD who were beginning stimulant medication and their mothers. Mothers and children offered attributions for child behaviors that occurred when the child was medicated and not medicated. Mothers rated child compliance and prosocial behavior as more global and stable when the child was medicated and rated noncompliance, ADHD symptoms, and oppositional behavior as more externally caused, less global and stable, but more controllable by the child when the child was medicated. Children rated both their compliance and noncompliance as more controllable in the medicated condition. On a forced-choice measure, both mothers and children selected ability, effort, and task attributions for compliance more in the not-medicated condition, and pill-taking attributions more in the medicated condition. This was reversed for noncompliance, which was attributed more to effort, task, or ability in the medicated condition and more to not taking a pill in the not-medicated condition. The potential risks and benefits for parent–child interactions and children's self-perceptions of these medication-related differences in attributions are discussed.     

Parents' attributions for achieving compliance from attention-deficit-disordered children

Ninety-one parents provided reasons for the compliance and noncompliance of either their attention-deficit-disordered, hyperactive (ADDH) or non-ADDH child in six different situations. These attributions were rated on Weiner's (1979) dimensions of locus, stability, and controllability. While parents used the same categories to explain the reasons for their children's complaince behavior, they used different dimensional ratings for these explanations. Mothers rated attributions for noncompliance as more external than did fathers. Mothers of ADDH children viewed the causes of their children's behavior to be more unstable than did mothers of control children. Also, ADDH parents had lower expectations of achieving future compliance from their child than did non- ADDH parents. Results were discussed in terms of parental experiences, the need to consider an idiosyncratic approach to attributional meaning, and treatment implications.     

Cuban Mothers' Schemas of ADHD: Development, Characteristics, and Help Seeking Behavior

Parents play a crucial role in the diagnosis and treatment of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), one of the most prevalent developmental disorders of young children We report the findings of a qualitative study of Cuban-American mothers of 7 to 10 year old children with ADHD. Results suggest that mothers lacked a cultural model for ADHD and held a cultural model of normal child development which hampered their development of a schema of ADHD. Development of ADHD schemas were motivated by perplexity at their children's behavior and by the high value mothers ascribed to academic achievement. Although the schemas developed by the mothers were labeled as ADHD, their behavioral characterizations of their children, their attributions for the condition and for its causes, and their management strategies were not always in agreement with those of the biomedical model for the condition. However, once mothers classified their children's behavior as atypical, they actively sought assistance from the professional sector.     

Treating Parents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: The Effects of Behavioral Parent Training and Acute Stimulant Medication Treatment on Parent–Child Interactions

This multiple baseline study evaluated the efficacy of behavioral parent training (BPT) for 12 parents (M age?=?39.17 years; 91 % mothers) and their children (ages 6–12; 83 % boys) both with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and also explored the acute effect of stimulant medication for parents before and after BPT. Parents rated their own and their children’s symptoms and impairment and were stabilized on optimally dosed medication. Then, parents discontinued medication and were randomly assigned to a 3, 4, or 5 week baseline (BL), during which they provided twice-weekly ratings of their impairment, parenting, and their child’s behavior. Following BL, parents and their children completed two laboratory tasks, once on their optimally dosed medication and once on a placebo to assess observable effects of medication on parent–child behavior, and they completed additional assessments of family functioning. Parents then completed eight BPT sessions, during which they were unmedicated. Twice-weekly ratings of parent and child behavior were collected during BPT and additional ratings were collected upon completing BPT. Two more parent–child tasks with and without parent medication were conducted upon BPT completion to assess the observable effects of BPT and BPT plus medication. Ten (83.33 %) parents completed the trial. Improvements in parent and child behavior were observed, and parents reported improved child behavior with BPT. Few benefits of BPT emerged through parent reports of parent functioning, with the exception of inconsistent discipline, and no medication or interaction effects emerged. These results, although preliminary, suggest that some parents with ADHD benefit from BPT. While pharmacological treatment is the most common intervention for adults with ADHD, further examination of psychosocial treatments for adults is needed.     

Parent perceptions and attributions for children's math achievement

From junior high school on, girls report lower estimations of their math ability and express more negative attitudes about math than do boys, despite equivalent performance in grades. Parents show this same sex-typed bias. This paper examines the role that attributions may play in explaining these sex differences in parents' perceptions of their children's math ability. Mothers and fathers of 48 junior high school boys and girls of high, average, and low math ability completed questionnaires about their perceptions of their child's ability and effort in math, and their causal attributions for their child's successful and unsuccessful math performances. Parents' math-related perceptions and attributions varied with their child's level of math ability and gender. Parents credited daughters with more effort than sons, and sons with more talent than daughters for successful math performances. These attributional patterns predicted sex-linked variations in parents' ratings of their child's effort and talent. No sex of child effects emerged for failure attributions; instead, lack of effort was seen as the most important, and lack of ability as the least important, cause of unsuccessful math performances for both boys and girls. Implications of these attributions for parents' influence on children's developing self-concept of math ability, future expectancies, and subsequent achievement behaviors are discussed.This paper is based on a master's thesis by the first author. This research was funded by grants to Jacquelynne S. Eccles from the following agencies: the Foundation for Child Development, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development.We wish to express our thanks to Linda Buford, Sandra Hamman, and Samuel D. Miller, who helped collect and code these data, and especially to the parents, students, and teachers in the Ann Arbor Public School district, whose cooperation made this project possible.     

初中数学学习中教师归因与学生自我归因的比较研究

本文研究了初中数学学习中教师的信念与归因．学生自我的信念与归因以及师生归因的比较,得出如下几点结论：(1)在教师和学生的信念中男生在数学学习中更占优势。但在归因领域里却没有发现显著的性别差异。(2)对最好的学生,教师倾向于努力归因;对最差的学生,教师倾向于基础归囚。(3)最好的学生自我归因时倾向于基础和方法归因,最差的学生倾向于努力和方法归因。(4)师生归因维度上的一般趋势：造成数学学习成功的原因比较稳定、内源、可控;造成数学学习失败的原因也倾向于内源,但比较不稳定,不可控。(5)师生特定归因中的差异广泛存在,建议采取相应的教育对策。     

Parental attributions and parental involvement

This study examined the existing relation between parental attributions of their child’s achievement, their belief in getting involved in the child’s educational process and their actual behavior regarding this involvement. The participating parents (N = 313) were asked to complete the Parental Attributions Scale and the Parental Involvement Scale. They were also asked to state to what degree they believed that parents in general and they personally as parents should get involved in their children’s educational affairs. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that attributing achievement to internal and controllable factors such as the parent’s own effort influenced positively the strength of the “getting involved” belief. This in turn had a strong effect on actual parental involvement activity.     

Parent Cognitions as Predictors of Child Treatment Response in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Using a subsample of 105 children and their parents (100 mothers, 57 fathers) from the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (the MTA), the value of parents' baseline cognitions as predictors of children's treatment outcome at 14 months was examined. Measures of parents' cognitions about themselves, their ADHD children, and their parenting, as well as a self-report measure of dysfunctional discipline were included. Both mothers' and fathers' self-reported use of dysfunctional discipline predicted worse child treatment outcome. Low self-esteem in mothers, low parenting efficacy in fathers, and fathers' attributions of noncompliance to their ADHD child's insufficient effort and bad mood also were associated with worse child treatment outcome. All of these predictive relations were obtained even after MTA treatment effects had been taken into account. Secondary analyses indicated that mothers had a more external locus of control, lower self-esteem, lower parenting efficacy, and a greater tendency to attribute noncompliance to their ADHD child's bad mood than did fathers.     

The Use of Stimulant Medication and Behavioral Interventions for the Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Survey of Parents’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Experiences

We examined parents’ knowledge, attitudes, and information sources regarding Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), including treatment with stimulant medication and behavioral interventions. Responses from parents with a child diagnosed with ADHD and parents without a child diagnosed with ADHD were also compared. Participants consisted of 146 parents of elementary age children from Wisconsin. The surveyed parents were aware of issues surrounding ADHD and the use of stimulant medication, but there were several areas where they possessed inaccurate or incomplete factual information. Parents who had a child diagnosed with ADHD rated the effects of stimulant medication more positively and side effects as less severe than other parents. They also rated behavioral interventions as less effective on all questions. Implications of the study are discussed.     

Mothers' attributions and expectancies regarding their conduct-disordered children

As an extension of Patterson's family coercion model, we hypothesized that parental attributions about the causes of child misbehavior and parental expectancies concerning the effectiveness of parenting techniques are involved in the establishment and maintenance of coercive exchanges. Mothers of 40 conduct-disordered children and 40 matched control children completed questionnaires measuring their attributions regarding the causes of their children's misbehavior and their expectations concerning the general and personal effectiveness of parenting techniques. Results supported the hypotheses: parents of conduct-disordered children were more likely to regard their children's misbehavior as intentional and to attribute it to stable, global causes beyond the parents' control. They also were less likely to see their own parenting as effective. We speculate that these parents hold cognitive stances of blame and helplessness that contribute to aversive parent behavior as well as to parent withdrawal in the face of escalating child aggressiveness.This article is based on a doctoral dissertation conducted by Anne Davison Baden while at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and was presented in part at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, August 1989.     

Ethical Evaluation Bias

The objective of this study was to determine whether Ritalin (methylphenidate, MPH) affects cognitive flexibility and creativity in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Measures administered included the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test-Revised (WCST-R), the Test of Divergent Thinking (TDT), and the Conners' ADHD rating scale, for both on and off MPH conditions. Comparison of on and off MPH data indicated that MPH administration significantly decreased symptoms of ADHD, as rated by parents on the Conners'. No significant differences were found on the WCST-R as a function of MPH administration. The Elaboration subscale of the TDT was the only scale to show a significant decrease in scores with MPH administration.     

Cross-lagged relations between kindergarten teachers’ causal attributions, and children’s interest value and performance in mathematics

The present study investigated mathematics performance and related interest value as the antecedents and consequences of teachers?? causal attributions concerning children??s academic outcomes during their kindergarten year. Sixty-nine children (5?C6?years old at the baseline) and their teachers were examined twice during the kindergarten year. Children were tested in mathematics performance and interviewed about their interest value. Teachers rated their causal attributions in the fall and spring. The results showed that the higher the interest value in mathematics children showed, the more the teacher attributed their success to ability and effort. Teachers?? ability attributions for success, in turn, contributed to an increase in children??s interest value in mathematics. Moreover, attributing children??s success and failure to external causes decreased children??s mathematics-related interest value.     

Remembering children's emotions: sources of concordant and discordant accounts between parents and children.

Parents were asked to recall recent events that had evoked happiness, sadness, anger, and fear in their children. Children (N = 77, 2.3-6.6 years) indicated whether they remembered each event, and if so, they described the event and how it had made them feel. Agreement between parent and child concerning how the child felt varied as a function of emotion. Children agreed with their parents' emotion attributions most often for events that parents recalled as having evoked happiness and sadness, less often for fear, and least often for anger. Children disagreed with parents' attributions of happiness and sadness most often when parents and children differed concerning the attribution of children's goals. Discordant reports about children's anger were most frequent when parents and children reported conflicting goals. Discordant reports about fear were most frequent when parents and children focused on different parts of the temporal sequence surrounding the event.     

Causal explanations for school performance: Contrasts between mothers and children

This study investigated the causal attributions given by mothers and their fifth and sixth grade children to explain the children's success in a school subject of relatively high achievement as well as their failure in an area of low performance. Participants were asked to weight the importance of four attributions: ability, effort, personality, and training. Analyses of variance revealed significant differences between mothers' and children's weightings. Mothers cited children's ability as the main cause of success, while lack of effort was viewed as the reason for failure. Children, in contrast, gave effort as the explanation for success and lack of ability as the reason for failure. The apparent lack of concordance between mothers' and children's causal beliefs is discussed in terms of three explanatory possibilities: (a) actor/observer differences, (b) the effects of the affective bond between mother and child, and (c) the tendency toward self-presentational bias.     

The Effectiveness of Mindfulness Training for Children with ADHD and Mindful Parenting for their Parents

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an 8-week mindfulness training for children aged 8–12 with ADHD and parallel mindful parenting training for their parents. Parents (N = 22) completed questionnaires on their child’s ADHD and ODD symptoms, their own ADHD symptoms, parenting stress, parental overreactivity, permissiveness and mindful awareness before, immediately after the 8-week training and at 8-week follow-up. Teachers reported on ADHD and ODD behavior of the child. A within-group waitlist was used to control for the effects of time and repeated measurement. Training was delivered in group format. There were no significant changes between wait-list and pre-test, except on the increase of teacher-rated ODD behavior. There was a significant reduction of parent-rated ADHD behavior of themselves and their child from pre-to posttest and from pre- to follow-up test. Further, there was a significant increase of mindful awareness from pre-to posttest and a significant reduction of parental stress and overreactivity from pre-to follow-up test. Teacher-ratings showed non-significant effects. Our study shows preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of mindfulness for children with ADHD and their parents, as rated by parents. However, in the absence of substantial effects on teacher-ratings, we cannot ascertain effects are due to specific treatment procedures.     

The attributions of children with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder for their problem behaviors

This study investigated the attributions children with ADHD make about their most problematic symptoms. Children were interviewed to determine the degree to which they felt their behavior was controllable, stable, global, and stigmatizing; and about the locus of the cause of their behavior. Participants were 16 children with ADHD (10 boys, 6 girls), and 16 children without ADHD (9 boys, 7 girls), ages 7 to 13. The present study demonstrated that children with ADHD viewed their most problematic behaviors as less within their control and more global across situations than children without ADHD. Children with ADHD were more likely than children without ADHD to view their most problematic behavior as always having been present, but were no more likely to view their most problematic behavior as persisting into the future. No significant group differences emerged on the locus of causality dimension. With regards to stigmatization, girls without ADHD reported that their behaviors can bother their teachers, parents, and peers, whereas girls and boys with ADHD did not perceive their behavior as bothersome.     

Effects of methylphenidate on complex cognitive processing in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder

Three experiments were conducted to explore the effects of methylphenidate (MPH), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis, and age on performance on a complex visual-memory search task. Results showed that the effects of MPH varied with information load. On low-processing loads, all doses of MPH helped children with ADHD to improve accuracy with no cost to reaction time (RT), whereas on high loads, higher MPH doses improved error rates while slowing RT. Without medication, children with ADHD showed high error rates and slow RTs across both low and high loads, as did younger, normal control children. Because MPH slowed performance on only the most difficult, high-load conditions, it is argued that the drug improves self-regulatory ability, enabling children with ADHD to adapt differentially to high and low loads.     

The role of treatment acceptability in the initiation of treatment for ADHD

Approximately 50% of families of children with ADHD fail to pursue, or adhere to, recommended treatments. The present study examines parent ratings of the acceptability of pharmacological and behavioral treatments for ADHD and the relationships between these ratings and subsequent pursuit of treatment. Fifty-five families whose children received an evaluation for ADHD completed questionnaires and were contacted 3 to 4 months later to assess their pursuit of treatment. Consistent with previous research, parents rated behavior therapy as more acceptable than medication. Parent ratings of medication acceptability significantly predict pursuit of pharmacological treatment, whereas ratings of the acceptability of behavior therapy do not predict pursuit of this treatment. Preliminary analyses found that Caucasian parents' ratings of medication are significantly higher than those of non-Caucasian parents. Furthermore, Caucasian families were more likely to pursue a recommendation for pharmacological treatment than non-Caucasian families. The clinical and research implications of these results are considered.     

Testing the ability of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to accurately report the effects of medication on their behavior

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are often treated with central nervous system stimulants, making the evaluation of medication effects an important topic for applied behavior analysts. Because assessment protocols emphasize informant reports and direct observations of child behavior, little is known about the extent to which children themselves can accurately report medication effects. Double-blind placebo-controlled procedures were used to examine whether 6 children with ADHD could recognize the effects of their medication. The children were given math worksheets to complete for 15 min during each of 14 sessions while on medication and placebo. Children completed a self-evaluation form at the end of each session, and ratings were compared to observed behavior and academic performance. Results indicated that 3 children were able to accurately report their medication status at levels greater than chance, whereas the accuracy of reports by all children was related to dosage level, differences in behavior, and the presence of adverse effects. The implications of these results for placebo-controlled research, self-monitoring of dosage levels, and accuracy training are discussed.