Planning your academic life: A cognitive behavioral planning treatment for students with ADHD.

College students are in their late adolescent years, in which
self-regulation is not fully developed yet. An estimated 2 to 8% of
college students have ADHD. Due to the loss of structure of home, high
school and impaired self-regulation, these students often have difficulty
with planning and organizing their college work and life. Their academic
functioning is disturbed and they are at risk for college dropout and
co-morbidity. This study assesses the effectiveness of a
cognitive-behavioral treatment focused on enhancing the planning and
organization skills of students with ADHD using a randomized controlled
design. Students with ADHD, aged 17-25 years old, are randomized to either
a 6 week treatment focussing on enhancing planning skills and
restructering dysfunctional cognitions or a waitlist control condition.
Pre, post, and follow-up tests are conducted. Outcomes are on ADHD
behavior, academic functioning, planning skills and comorbidity.

We expect the "academic" cognitive behavioral planning treatment to be more effective than waitlist control condition, in the short (posttest) and on the middle long term (4 months follow-up test).

Pretest, posttest, follow-up 1 (4 months) and follow-up 2 (6 months).

The intervention is a cognitive behavioral planning treatment focused on planning academic life of students with ADHD. The intervention is 6 sessions and at 4 months follow-up there is a booster session. The treatment session are 60 minutes.
The treatment sessions are focused on the following area's:

1. Enhancing planning and organization of daily life and study;

2. Restructering dysfunctional cognitions using cognitive behavioral techniques;

3. Enhancing motivation for treatment and change;

4. How and when to use the
help of significant others.



The control condition is a waitlist control condition.