Organizational Skill Training (OST) in Schools

A School-Based Program to Improve Children's Organizational Skills

The primary aim of this project is to address the need for an effective school-based intervention for elementary school-aged students with Organization, Time Management, and Planning (OTMP) deficits by adapting an evidence-supported clinic-based intervention so that it can be implemented in school settings. Investigators are learning to adapt an individual, clinic based program (OST-C) for children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) to children with OTMP problems. Investigators will be collecting data . To this end, investigators will be collecting data on implementation (such as feasibility and acceptability), program development (what changes to the individual OST-C program were made based on findings during this study) and limited outcome data (repeated measures collection and pre- and post-treatment collection on a small sample, no control group).

Inclusion Criteria:

• Children will be recruited based on their parents' interest level in having them participate in a program to improve their organizational skills.
• Investigators will consider feedback from their 3rd to 5th grade general education or inclusion classroom teacher based on OTMP problems difficulties that interfere with functioning (difficulty in morning routine or end-of-day packing up routine, a high percentage of incomplete or missing assignments, messy desk or Seat Sack).
• Investigators will not use specific cutoffs on normed measures for determining eligibility based on these difficulties, as the intention is to develop a program that can be easily disseminated.
• Availability to attend twice-weekly sessions with the OTMP trainer either during the school day (during a time when they would not be pulled from academic content) or during after-school hours.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Children with Mental Retardation will not participate in the study, due to the difficulty they would likely have understanding the content of the sessions.