Social Skills Training and ADHD: What Gives it the Best Shot at Working?

A short supply of self-restraint and other characteristics of ADHD can hurt relationships.  Social skills training is one of the interventions used to prevent relationship damage and increase relationship repair.  But does it work?

The results of a fresh-off-the-presses study on social skills training support Russell Barkley’s argument (Understanding ADHD) that skills presented and practiced away from real-life situations at the moment of trouble (e.g., as one is about to curse someone out) may be of little value.

Social skills training had “limited efficacy” according to Canadian researchers reviewing social skills training for kids and teens with ADHD (study here).  Nonetheless, they identified “two promising” ways to increase its usefulness.  First, offer “increased reinforcement and reminders of appropriate social behavior at the point of performance to youth with ADHD (e.g., in vivo, in real life peer situations as opposed to in the clinic).”  Second, encourage “peers to be more socially accepting and inclusive of youth with ADHD.”

In other words, go to the youths’ environments to work on what’s happening there (looking at both their actions and the actions of others toward them).

Maybe some day, we’ll send kids to mental health clinics less often and start going to them, where the action is.  And where science suggests we need to be.