ADHD expert: Boost skills not pills

BUFFALO, N.Y., April 7 (UPI) -- A meta-analysis of 174 attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder studies finds treating behavior works as well as giving drugs, a U.S. researcher said.

The study, published in Clinical Psychology Review, finds teaching parents and teachers how to respond when ADHD children do things the right way as well as when they display harmful or aggressive behavior is as effective and sometimes more effective, than medication.

"This review shows that behavioral treatments work, and in general work well," first author Gregory A. Fabiano of the University at Buffalo said in a statement.

"For the past couple of decades, there has been considerable professional controversy about the role and adequacy of behavior modification treatments in the care of children with ADHD. The next step is to figure out how to make them work for individual families over the long run, because we now know that ADHD is a lifelong condition."

Through use of behavior modification, children could bypass the risk of side effects from ADHD drugs and achieve the same or better results as drug treatments, Fabiano noted.

"Our results suggest that efforts should be redirected from debating the effectiveness of behavioral interventions to dissemination, enhancing and improving the use of these programs in community, school and mental health settings," Fabiano said.