This study is inscribed in the scope of an international partnership – the Web Health Application for ADHD Monitoring – WHAAM which main product is the development of a Web Application with the purpose to provide health professional teachers and parents with features to easily monitor defiant behaviors of young pupil’s with Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The Web Application was developed based on principles of Functional Behavior Analysis and allows to register the child’ s defiant behaviors in daily life in a specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely way. However, the effectiveness of the Web Application use requires users – teachers and parents – to have knowledge on functional behavioral analysis principles and implementation.

The question that emerged was how to conduct this training with key persons for children with ADHD? Two hypotheses were on the table: being conducted independently for teachers, health professionals and parents; or developing a training that could be delivered for all together. Our decision relied in this last option and was based on three main premises.  Firstly, parents can be the best asset for intervening with a child with ADHD due to their privileged knowledge about the child defiant behaviors across all the settings where she is called to participate. However, based on the assumption that “knowledge is power”, parents need information about the characteristics of ADHD, as well as about intervention strategies to improve daily life and what their role will be to ensure progress, namely in functional behavioral analysis (Danforth, Harvey, Ulaszek, & McKee, 2006). Secondly and strictly associated with the first one, it is quite usual to hear complaints from educational professionals that parents do not engage in intervention plans as they need to do, as it is quite usual to hear complaints from parents that educational professionals use a difficult terminology or that they don´t understand how to implement strategies recommended. Again, the key issue beyond this premise corresponds to the need for enhancing parents’ knowledge. Finally, and the most important, managing defiant behaviors in ADHD applies for the principle of consistency, that is, interventions are more likely to be succeed if persons, events and settings act in agreement (Miller & Lee, 2013; Pelham & Fabiano, 2008). Aware of such claim, the international partnership developed the Web Application based on the requirement for parents and educational professionals to work collaboratively in the assessment of challenging behaviors (for example they can share observations of behaviors through the Web Application), the definition and implementation of intervention strategies and the monitoring of child’s progresses. Therefore, the WHAAM international team designed and delivered a training course for educational professionals and parents of children with ADHD aimed at creating a network of caregivers familiar with behavioral modification techniques and the Web Application features.

In this sense, this study has as overall aim to evaluate the training and the Web Application, what can be broken in two questions: How do parents and educational professionals evaluate the training philosophy – joining parents and professionals in a common training? How do parents and educational professionals evaluate the utility and feasibility of the Web Application? 

Danforth, J.S., Harvey, E., Ulaszek, W.R. & McKee, T.E. (2006). The outcome of group parent training for families of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and defiant/aggressive behavior. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 37, 188-205. Miller, F., & Lee, D. (2013). Do Functional Behavioral Assessments Improve Intervention Effectiveness for Students Diagnosed with ADHD? A Single-Subject Meta-Analysis. Journal of Behavioral Education, 22(3), 253-282. doi: 10.1007/s10864-013-9174-4 Pelham, W. E., & Fabiano, G. A. (2008).Evidence-based psychosocial treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology, 37, 184–214.doi:10.1080/15374410701818681