Symposia
ADHD - Child
James Waxmonsky, M.D.
Penn State College of Medicine
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Daniel Waschbush, Ph.D
Professor and Vice Chair for Research
Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Penn State College of Medicine
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Whitney Fosco, PhD
Assistant Professor
Penn State College of Medicine
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Avleen Walia, BA
staff
Penn State Collège of Medicine
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Urveesha Nirjar, M.A.
Human Research Technologist
Penn State College of Medicine
Hershey, Pennsylvania
Autumn Kujawa, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
Background: Responses to psychosocial interventions for pediatric ADHD vary widely, and child specific variables have shown limited predictive utility. Parental emotion regulatory (PER) capacity has been found to predict negative parenting behaviors while evidence based psychosocial interventions for children with ADHD rely on parents being the primary area of change. Objective indices of PER exist but their association with treatment outcomes for parenting interventions targeting children with ADHD have not been explored.
Methods: We recruited parents of children ages 5-12 with ADHD and at least mild levels of oppositional behaviors at home. Prior to completing an evidenced behavioral parenting intervention (COPE: Community Parent Education Program), 33 parents completed a multimethod battery of emotion regulatory capacity and emotional reactivity. Self-reported PER was measured via the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Objective PER was measured by change in the amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP) event related potential during a positive reappraisal task. Emotional reactivity was measured using change in LPP amplitude when viewing angry versus pixelated faces. As this was an exploratory pilot trial, we assessed all EEG time and poolings supported by the literature as being relevant to emotion regulation and emotion reactivity.
Results: The employed behavioral treatment was associated with reduced levels of ADHD symptoms, oppositional behaviors and negative parenting behaviors as well improved home functioning. Initial analyses revealed LPP amplitude changes at frontal nodes during the emotion regulation task were significantly correlated with change in levels of child oppositional behaviors and overall impairment. Self-reported PER capacity was not associated with changes in these outcomes
Conclusion: The capacity of objective measures of parental emotion regulatory capacity to predict the response to parenting interventions for children with ADHD merits further exploration.