Implications for Academic Achievement

Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit complex and severe neuropsychological and cognitive deficits that profoundly impact behavioral, social, and aca-demic functioning both at home and in school (DuPaul & Stoner, 2004; Reddy & De Thomas, 2006; Willcutt, Doyle, Nigg, Faraone, & Pennington, 2005). In addition to telltale signs of developmentally inappropriate inattention, impulsiv-ity, and hyperactivity, these children experience poor planning, organization, self-monitoring, problem-solving, and social skills (Hale, Reddy, Wilcox, et al., 2009). Prevalence rates are fairly consistent across class, culture, and race (Barkley, 2006), with approximately 5 % of children affected with ADHD worldwide (Polanczyk & Rohde, 2007), making it one of the most common neuropsychiatric childhood disorders (Konrad, Gunther, Hanisch, & Herpertz-Dahlmann, 2004). Considered by many to be a disruptive behavior disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), ADHD frequently co-occurs with other psychiatric disorders (Spencer, 2006) and is often accompanied by poor academic achievement when executive function deficits are present (Biederman et al., 2004). Many children with ADHD are also diagnosed with specific learning disabilities (SLD) in reading, writing, and/or math