606 - Urban teachers’ perspectives on ADHD communication: A mixed methods survey

Poster Number: 606
Publication Number: 606.1774

Background: Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most common behavioral health condition in children, with national prevalence around 10%. Guideline-based ADHD care requires close communication among many members of a child’s life, including caregiver, teacher(s) and clinicians. Facilitating communication can be difficult, given the complexity of clinical/school/family schedules and maintaining HIPAA and FERPA compliance. In many medical offices messages are transmitted via fax, causing inefficiencies. Previous studies have demonstrated the difficulty of gathering ADHD rating scales from the clinical perspective, but teacher perspectives have not yet been studied.

Objective: We conducted a pilot survey of teachers in a large urban school district to explore teacher opinions on communications around ADHD.

Design/Methods: The 16 item surveys asking about teaching experience and communication around ADHD were sent to all elementary school teachers at 30 Rochester City School District elementary schools via email. Teacher interest was high: we reached capacity (n=63) in < 12 hours. Descriptive statistics were used to describe proportions. Qualitative responses were analyzed by coding into themes.

Results: Of the 63 survey respondents, the average age was 44, 85% identified as female, and 73% had been teachers for 11 years or more. (Table 1) The majority of teachers reported that 0-25% of their students had ADHD diagnoses, and many (25%) thought >20% of their students in the last year had undiagnosed ADHD. We found that 48% of teachers thought ADHD communication with families was Fair/Poor. Even though 84% of the teachers ranked ADHD communication as Extremely/Very Important, 83% thought ADHD communication with the medical team was Fair/Poor. Teachers preferred to communicate with clinicians by email (46%) rather than via families (3%).


In optional written comments, the survey invited teachers to share anything that important for the medical team to know; 58% added comments. In qualitative analysis, comments were coded, and several dominant themes emerged, including: untreated ADHD students had an achievement gap, teachers did not feel empowered to suggest the diagnosis, they wanted more education on ADHD, and they wanted closer communication around ADHD. (Table 3)

Conclusion(s): Communication among teachers, families, and providers is inadequate. This problem produces gaps in care that create educational challenges for children with ADHD. We need to be more creative in finding and implementing methods for direct communications with families and teachers in ways that conform to privacy laws.