Training interventions have emerged as an alternative to behavior therapy for youth with ADHD. Training interventions begin with brief psychoeducation about a target skill (e.g., materials organization) and the majority of the time after that is spent with extensive practice and performance feedback. It has been recommended that for training to be effective, the skill must be directly applicable to an area of impairment, and practice with performance feedback must occur frequently and over an extended period of time (Evans et al., 2018). Studies with children (Abikoff et al., 2013) and young adolescents (Langberg et al., 2012) with ADHD indicate that training and behavioral interventions have similar short-term benefits, but there is evidence unique to training interventions that their long-term benefits may meaningfully exceed those of other treatments (Evans et al., 2016). It may be that once skills are established through a training intervention, they become routine and persist longer than behaviors shaped by rewards. Increasing our understanding of the mechanisms for training interventions can lead to development of optimally effective approaches. In addition, training interventions have been applied to relatively few areas of impairment (e.g., study and organization skills) and evaluating them across the diverse range of functioning may yield new tools for treatment.
