2008 Ohio Psychologist - Ohio Psychological Association

or higher represent clinically significant problems. IRS has solid
psychometric properties and discriminates between children with
and without ADHD (Fabiano et al., 2006).
Procedure
Teachers completed the DBD and IRS at the beginning (pretreatment)
and end of the school year (post-treatment). Jacobson
and Truax’s (1991) methodology was used to create reliable
change groups based on the symptoms of ADHD (the average of
the inattention and hyperactivity subscales of the DBD). If the
Reliable Change Index (RCI) was greater or equal to 1.96, children
were considered deteriorators; if it was less than or equal to -1.96,
children were categorized as
improvers; and, if the RCI fell
between 1.96 and -1.96, children
were considered no-changers.
Based on these calculations 31%
of children were classified as
improvers, 58.3% as no-changers,
and 10.7% as deteriorators in the
no-changers and deteriorators who did not differ from each other.
Simple effects tests also indicated that the symptom no-changers
and the symptom deteriorators did not change significantly over
time in functioning, Wilks’ Lambda = .10, F (1, 71) = .21, p = .65,
and Wilks’ Lambda = .98, F (1, 71) = 1.27, p = .26, respectively.
In contrast, improvers demonstrated significant reductions in
functional impairment across time, Wilks’ Lambda = .61, F (1, 71) =
45.35, p