“You’ve Got a Friend in Me”- Social Skills and Friendship Building in Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Date
2024-12-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder causing impairment in multiple areas of functioning, including behavioural, emotional, and social abilities. Social skill challenges and poor interpersonal relationships are often found in adolescents with ADHD. Specifically, adolescents with ADHD may struggle with social skills resulting in less friendships, lower friendship quality, and engaging in more inappropriate social behaviours compared to their neurotypical peers. Researchers have promoted the need for long term interventions that not only address social skill development but directly address dyadic friendship making for adolescents with ADHD. One such intervention, the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) has the potential to address these challenges. The current study expanded on previous research by examining the effectiveness of PEERS on social skill development and friendship making in adolescents with ADHD in a Canadian context. After inclusionary criteria were applied and data quality were examined, the final sample included 46 participants (23 adolescents and 23 caregivers/parents), with adolescents ranging in age from 13.0-18.1 years of age. The research design involves repeated time points and analyses were conducted using linear mixed models. Participation in PEERS was associated with significant gains in social skills knowledge, formation of a new friendship, increased get togethers, and improved quality of existing friendships at post intervention; these were maintained at follow-up. The results suggest that PEERS may be an effective tool to build adolescents with ADHD’s social skills and improve friendship making, reducing the potential negative outcomes in this population.
Description
Keywords
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Adolescents, Social skills training, Friendship making, Friendship quality
Citation
Neprily, K. (2024). “You’ve got a friend in me”- social skills and friendship building in adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.