A Cognitive-Behavior Therapy and Mentoring Program for College Students With ADHD

• ACCESS is a newly developed psychosocial treatment for college students with ADHD
• ACCESS provides group CBT, accompanied by individual mentoring
• ACCESS targets and improves ADHD knowledge, behavioral skill, and adaptive thinking
• ACCESS improves executive, academic, and emotional functioning
• Additional controlled clinical trial needed to determine efficacy and effectiveness of ACCESS

College students with ADHD are at increased risk for a number of functional impairments, the severity of which is of sufficient clinical significance to warrant intervention (DuPaul & Weyandt, 2009). Very little treatment research of this type has been conducted to date (Green & Rabiner, 2012). The need for such research is critical, given the increasing numbers of students with ADHD attending college (Pryor, Hurtado, DeAngelo, Blake, & Tran, 2010), their increased risk for dropping out of college, and the known negative life outcomes for which they may be at increased risk later as adults (Barkley, Murphy, & Fischer, 2008). To address this situation we recently developed and began testing Accessing Campus Connections and Empowering Student Success (ACCESS). The active phase of ACCESS provides group cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), accompanied by individual mentoring. Booster group CBT and mentoring sessions are provided during a maintenance phase. Preliminary findings have revealed significant increases in ADHD knowledge, use of organizational skills, and reductions in maladaptive thinking, all of which are presumed mechanisms of clinical change. Such changes have been accompanied by reductions in ADHD symptoms, improvements in executive functioning, educational benefits, improved emotional well-being, and increased use of disability services and other campus resources. Although promising, such findings are limited by the fact that ACCESS has thus far been tested in an open clinical trial. Thus, additional research is needed to determine its efficacy and effectiveness.