Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2015, Clinical Psychology (Arts and Sciences)

Youth with ADHD often exhibit social impairment, which leads to peer rejection and is associated with negative outcomes. Interventions targeting these social problems using social skills training methods have been unsuccessful. However, one emerging treatment for social impairment, Interpersonal Skills Group (ISG), has preliminary support for decreasing social impairment in adolescents with ADHD. The theory of change for ISG is based on a model of social impairment that integrates social goals, individualization and generalization, social cognitive components, and developmental tasks of adolescence in order to increase social functioning. Despite preliminary support for ISG, there are several questions central to the theory of change for the intervention regarding the social impairment of youth with ADHD that have not been empirically tested. The purpose of this study was to investigate the two central questions of the theory of change for ISG: 1) Do adolescents with ADHD choose social goals that are similar to their non-disordered peers, and 2) If an adolescent is closer to “ideal self” on social goals, do they experience less social impairment? Results of this study indicate that there are minimal differences between the social goals adolescents with ADHD choose as most important and the social goals typically-developing adolescents choose as most important, with the majority of differences in social goals existing for social interactions with teachers. Further, the performance of adolescents with ADHD on their top three social goals does not predict measures of social impairment. However, the performance of adolescents with ADHD on the top three social goals as identified by typically-developing adolescents as most important does predict social functioning, with better performance on social goals predicting better social skills and less parent-child conflict. The findings of this study suggest that modifications to future iterations of ISG may be important in ord (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Steven Evans (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology