This randomized controlled trial studied 75 children with ADHD, aged 5 to 12, at an 8-week summer treatment program. Most were boys (71%), and most families were Hispanic or Latino (83%). Children were placed by chance into one of two groups. In one group, parents got behavioral parent training focused on homework, plus a daily report card. The other group was put on a waitlist. All children also took part in a 3-week double-blind crossover of placebo and a once-daily long-acting stimulant (methylphenidate, average daily dose 21 mg). Homework was given in class and scored for how much was done and how much was right.
Children in the parent training group finished more homework and got more of it right than the waitlist group. The differences were large and unlikely to be down to chance. They completed about 10 to 13% more homework. Medication alone gave small gains in accuracy, and only for children without parent training. It did not clearly raise how much homework got done. Adding medication to parent training gave no extra benefit. Parent reports of homework problems did not change with any treatment.
The authors note that homework was measured about 11.5 hours after the dose and that the doses were low. Most families were Hispanic, which may limit how widely the results apply. The authors suggest that parent training with a well-run daily report card is a better recommendation for homework problems in children like these.
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The numbers Stats and what the terms mean
The statistics behind the plain-language claims above.
- Merrill, 2017: effect of parent training plus a daily report card on homework completion and accuracy, compared with the waitlist, Cohen's ds from 1.40 to 2.21, ps < .001.
- Merrill, 2017: model-estimated math homework completion, 68.62% with no treatment, 73.11% with medication only, 82.34% with parent training and report card only, and 83.10% with both.
What the terms mean:
- Cohen's d A number that shows how big a difference is, separate from whether it was statistically significant; here it compared the parent training group with the waitlist. Roughly, 0.2 is small, 0.5 is moderate and 0.8 is large. A minus sign shows the direction of the change, not its size.
- p-value A number from a statistical test that shows how unusual a result would be if there were really no effect; here every value was below .001.
Source: Merrill B, Morrow A, Altszuler A, et al.. Improving homework performance among children with ADHD: A randomized clinical trial.. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (2017). doi:10.1037/ccp0000144