What Do Preschool Teachers Know About Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Does It Impact Ratings of Chil
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ORIGINAL PAPER
What Do Preschool Teachers Know About Attention‑Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Does It Impact Ratings of Child Impairment? Bridget Poznanski1 · Katie C. Hart1 · Paulo A. Graziano1 Accepted: 8 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Among preschool children referred for psychological assessment and intervention, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed disorder. In order to create school-based interventions that are consistently and effectively implemented by teachers, it is important to understand teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about ADHD, as studies have identified lack of knowledge as a barrier to treatment integrity. The present study seeks to fill the important gaps of previous work and gain an understanding of preschool teachers’ knowledge and opinions of ADHD, and how knowledge of ADHD impacts teachers’ perceptions of child impairment across domains. The present study includes teachers (n = 107; 97.2% female; 59.2% Hispanic or Latino; 16.8% Black or African-American) of ethnically and linguistically diverse preschool students in an urban school setting who were being referred for a summer treatment program. Teachers’ knowledge of ADHD was investigated and related to teacher characteristics (i.e., education, years of experience, classroom type, professional development) and ratings of child impairment across domains. Overall, preschool teachers achieved 38.3% accuracy on the knowledge of ADHD measure, with highest levels of inaccurate knowledge related to the symptoms and treatment for ADHD. Generally, teachers with more misperceptions and knowledge gaps regarding ADHD rated children as more impaired on several domains. The results of the current study reveal large gaps in preschool teacher knowledge of ADHD. As such, there are important implications for future teacher training and professional development. Keywords ADHD · Preschool · Teacher knowledge · Preschool teacher
Introduction Among preschool children referred for psychological assessment and intervention, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most commonly diagnosed disorder (Egger & Angold, 2006; Gadow, DeVincent, Pomeroy, & Azizian, 2004; Lavigne, LeBailly, Hopkins, Gouze, & Binns, 2009; Wichstrom et al., 2011). Prevalence rates of ADHD in preschool samples indicate that approximately one child in every early childhood education setting has ADHD, similar to rates identified in elementary-age youth (Egger and Angold, 2006; Lavigne et al., 2009). ADHD symptoms in * Bridget Poznanski [email protected] 1
The School READY Lab, Center for Children and Families, Department of Psychology, Florida International University, 11200 S.W. 8th Street, Miami, FL 33199, USA
the preschool years have been consistently linked to poor school readiness and pre-academic functioning (McClelland et al., 2007), continued problem behaviors and externalizing behavior diagnoses in elementary school (Angold & Egger, 2007; Campbell & Ewin
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