Does Social Skills Training Benefit Children with ADHD?

You are 100% right at least in the case of my daughter. She knows all the zones of regulation and her toolkit by heart but she just can't apply that knowledge in the moment because she gets so peaked in the moment that she doesn't even want to use it. Her OT is working toward a performance-based approach, but I'll be ordering this book for at home because it sounds perfect!

Can you please make a video about how to protect ADHD children from bullying and how to deal with it when it happened? Many adhd children are victims of bullying and teachers and parents dont know how to deal with it. When you tell it to your parents, they talk to parents of the bully and they punish their kid but it only makes it worse because now there is revenge.

i wasn't expecting to tear up watching one of your videos but I did. I was so lonely. So heartbreakingly lonely. I couldn't understand why I didn't fit in. I didn't understand why I couldn't keep friends. I did have friends in high school but we were all probably undiagnosed neurodiverse drama and art freaks. We all wandered off after HS and didn't keep in touch so there I was again, trying to fit in all over again. I think I finally gave up. (I do have friends but they are like me. We forget about each other until we remember and say "hey fren!") BTW, I'm 60 and diagnosed just this month.

I've been doing one on one therapy every 2 weeks for about a year and a half now and that has been helping me by a tiny fraction on my social life. But not because I have learned social skills. It's a combination of things. First of all simple awareness and mindfulness. And then not beating myself up for it. If I I do the wrong thing, I don't have to go down a shame spiral. I can actually say out loud "whoops sorry ...that was my ADHD." And that lets me forgive myself and move on, let's the other person know that I didn't mean to be that way and offers them a window of empathy. Most of my life I have felt like I was "performing" in social groups. Like I have a role and I have lines that I am supposed to say and I keep forgetting lines or going off script or saying other people's lines. I never felt like I was actually just being myself..for myself. I was always trying to do the things others wanted me to do, but never getting it right and maybe not really having that deeper connection to what was right in the first place. They are just lines in a play that someone else gave to me. But now I have started to figure out that it's ok to just be me, to let people know that I might act a little different sometimes and help them understand me. I don't always feel like I am doing something wrong. I can also spot some of my impulsive behaviors now before I do them. Or as I do them. LOL The only "social skills training" I remember getting as a kid was that my mom sat me down in front of that sesame Street video about the kid who wants to pop the balloon and then the chain of consequences. And I remember her really drilling home that I have to think about every way in which popping the balloon could hurt others. But I'm an over thinker and I don't think this has helped me in life. It more paralyzed me or made me focus too hard on the other people and whether something I did hurt them. It gave me this tremendous burden of guilt and shame and blame in social interaction. I think social training is more likely to screw kids up emotionally than help them. I'm not sure why people keep trying. Just be understanding and compassionate and tell kids with ADHD that it's not their fault. Teach them how to explain themselves after they have done the faux pas. Teach them how to accept their flaws and be themselves.

This makes absolute sense doc, thank you.

What about social training for later in life diagnosed adults? 🤔 I am curious about that as I am 32, recently diagnosed and have struggled with communicating my thoughts to words / social situations, etc.

thats why telling me "don't interrupt and don't be so loud" won't work at all.

Really interesting - helped me make a few conceptual connections between 'social skills training' for ADHD and some aspects of 'applied behaviour analysis' for Autism (diagnosed with both). Specifically, both of these approaches are often harmful and distressing because they focus on the affected person's behaviour. Instead, a successful approach likely involves tailoring their environment to help avoid unnecessary conflict (and unlearn maladaptive behaviours). Your talks and videos have helped me radically shift my perspective on ADHD since being diagnosed. For most of my life (pre- and post-diagnosis), I often tried to "learn better skills" to solve my dysfunctions. Over the last several years, approaching my life with the mindset that I should be working to skew the moments that require skill execution in my favour has let me make more progress (becoming stable, sustainably productive, and emotionally regulated) than I had made during the last entire decade. Thank you for your work - past and ongoing! Sections from your talk on "30 essential ideas" are my go-to resource for politely but effectively discouraging pervasive ADHD myths.

I think the most important thing would just be making sure everyone knows when they have ADHD, or are subclinical, but have traits that it can affect social skills. I had no idea (and to some degree, still do not) why I had so so many social difficulties.

Thanks Prof Barkley for this wonderful channel. It is profoundly useful to me, both as a sufferer and as a psychological researcher. Also, does anyone know if there's anyone out there, on YouTube or elsewhere, doing this kind of thing for depression or anxiety disorders? Thanks in advance!

So the methodology defines benefit without attempting to measure improvement in social outcomes using a tool like Interpersonal Support Evaluation or the Social Support Questionnaire. Instead, they asked parents and teachers whether they subjectively approve of the child's behavior? How can a conclusion be made based on something that wasn't measured?

Ah - this sounds quite like “why will no one play with me” by Caroline Maguire. Thank you for the Mikami link - I will get it this week. It sounds useful for adults too. Do executive function training programs “work” to improve them - I suspect some limited awareness benefit but medication/external structure is more beneficial.

Curious about how social slills training perform for those with adhd and asd combined? And medicated adhd vs unmedicated participation in social skills?

I think it depends on what 'social skills' training means as it means different things to different people and can be very different between programs. Traditional skills training sucks - you can't learn performance skills by rote memory - you need to be able to action it in the situation in real time. However, as an adult education around understanding how and why people react and interact in certain ways, how my interaction style is different and how to negotiate shared spaces and relationship difficulties - for example, expressing having different tendencies or being more effective in explaining my thought processes, action or intents has been helpful. Another area is role play for specific situations - for example, practising a job interview to reduce anxiety and work out what to say is helpful or peer coaching in real-time conversation with a trusted person.

I grew up with no friends... But I don't think it was ADHD related. My mom says I told her when I was very young that I was going to play with a child that others wouldn't play with. Then they wouldn't play with me either. That meant I grew up with no friends. I have not been tested but my doctor thinks I have ADHD at 59. Do I need social skills training?

Dad! Plaid!

Have you seen ADHD Dude? Do you think him type of intervention is beneficial?