Further analysis of the separate and interactive effects of methylphenidate and common classroom contingencies.
Brief time-out can wipe out ADHD classroom disruption even when medication is stopped.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four boys with ADHD went through 16 classroom sessions.
Each day they either took their usual pill or a placebo.
Teachers gave brief time-outs for talking out or leaving seat.
The team counted disruptive and off-task acts every minute.
What they found
Time-out dropped disruption to almost zero for three boys.
The fourth boy also improved, just not as much.
Medication helped some, but time-out worked with or without it.
Pills did not make the time-out stronger.
How this fits with other research
Rasing et al. (1992) showed quick teacher reprimands alone can match pills for ADHD off-task behavior.
The new study adds a brief time-out and gets the same drug-free win, so the two papers stack, not clash.
Bradshaw et al. (1978) used a ribbon-removal timeout and cut disruption from a large share to a large share.
Their ribbon and our corner time-out tell the same story: removing attention quickly calms the room.
Why it matters
You can tame ADHD disruption without waiting for med changes.
Place a chair in the corner, set a two-minute timer, and send the student there each time rule-breaking occurs.
In this study the move erased almost every disruptive act, pill or no pill.
Try it next session and track the numbers; you may find you need less medication talk and more teaching time.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Put a timer on your desk and give a 2-minute corner time-out for each disruptive act; count the behaviors before and after lunch.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
We evaluated separate and interactive effects between common classroom contingencies and methylphenidate (MPH) on disruptive and off-task behaviors for 4 children with a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Analogue conditions consisting of contingent teacher reprimands, brief time-out, no interaction, and alone were conducted in a multielement design. Medication status (MPH or placebo) was alternated across days in a superordinate multielement design. Results indicate that (a) the behavioral effects of MPH were influenced by one or more of the analogue conditions for each participant, and (b) time-out was associated with zero or near-zero levels of both disruptive and off-task behavior for 3 of the 4 participants during MPH and placebo conditions. Implications for the clinical effectiveness of MPH and possible behavioral mechanisms of action of MPH in applied settings are discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1999 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1999.32-35