Teacher Help for Children and Youth With Mental Health Disorders

NCT02919215 | Terminated DMC

• 1 other identifier: 143552
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 34
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Currently, Canadian school systems are struggling to meet the needs of children with mental health disorders. It is particularly challenging to meet the needs of students with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) within the regular classroom setting. Past research indicates that supportive and knowledgeable teachers who implement evidence-based interventions in the classroom are effective in increasing the success of students with mental health disorders, including students with NDDs. Factors such as understanding the disorder, use of evidenced-based teaching approaches, and access to professional developmental opportunities can improve teacher's knowledge and classroom practice. The Teacher Help research team along with industry partner, Velsoft, and key knowledge user, Nova Scotia Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, will address this need by developing, evaluating, and commercializing a sustainable eHealth resource for teachers. Teacher Help is an eHealth professional development program that assists teachers who work in the regular classroom setting in providing evidence-based interventions to students in grades 1 to 12 with mental health disorders. The program was developed based on programs previously tested by the investigators as well as on the extant literature on this topic. Teacher Help provides access to information through 6 sessions using text, video, and activities. Currently three modules (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder \[ADHD\], Autism Spectrum Disorder \[ASD\], and Learning Disabilities \[LD\]) are at different stages in the innovation pipeline.Our goal is to conduct a pre-post intervention study in which participants (collaborating school psychologists, teachers, students, and caregivers) access the Teacher Help program. The effects of the Teacher Help intervention will be assessed once participants have completed the intervention. Assessments will include students' general psychopathology symptoms, impairment, and quality of life as reported by teachers, parents/caregivers, and students (when developmentally appropriate). Additionally, we will explore changes in treatment utilization, participants' satisfaction with the program, as well as changes in teachers' beliefs toward students with NDDs and use of evidence-based strategies. To the Teacher Help team's knowledge, Teacher Help is the first and only research-validated eHealth program directly targeting teachers to help them intervene with children and youth who have mental health disorders, thus allowing Canada to take a lead in eHealth as applied to a school context.

Conditions

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Learning Disabilities

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 2001)

  The SDQ will be used to measure student behavior using a Likert Scale with three possible choices ranging from "Not True" to "Somewhat True" to "Certainly True". "Somewhat True" is always scored as 1, but the scoring for "Not True" and "Certainly True" varies with the item (either scored as 0 or 2), so reverse scoring will be conducted. The SDQ is a validated, 25-item modular tool designed to measure student behavior. The SDQ assesses student behavior across 5 domains: emotion symptoms, conduct problems, inattention/hyperactivity, social problems and prosocial behaviour. The total difficulties score is generated by summing scores of all scales except the prosocial scale, resulting in a range of 0-40. The scores are transformed to a 0-10 scale, with higher scores reflecting more negative interference in the child's life. Higher prosocial scale scores indicate more prosocial behavior.

  Baseline, Follow Up

Secondary Outcomes (16)

• Teacher Demographic Questionnaire (author made)

  Baseline

• Parent Demographic Questionnaire (author-made)

  Baseline

• Collaborating School Psychologist Demographic Questionnaire (CPDQ)

  Baseline

• Rating Scale of Impairment (RSI) (Goldstein & Naglieri, 2016)

  Baseline, Follow Up

• KIDSCREEN Questionnaire (KIDSQ)

  Baseline, Follow Up

Other Outcomes (1)

• Screening Questionnaire (SQ) (author made)

  Screening, pre-baseline

Study Arms (1)

Teacher Help Intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

The intervention will be provided to collaborating psychologists and their teachers to access. Teachers will work through the intervention, and psychologists will act as a support for teachers if needed. All participants can access and/or provide usual services. Teachers will work with one student in their classroom with ADHD, ASD, or LD throughout the intervention phase. Each session in the program will provide factual information to teachers, strategies for implementation of best practices to address the specific mental health disorder in the classroom setting (i.e., ADHD, ASD, or LD), and access to additional help and advice.

Behavioral: Teacher Help Intervention

Interventions

Teacher Help Intervention BEHAVIORAL

The intervention will be provided to collaborating psychologists and their teachers to access. Teachers will work through the intervention, and psychologists will act as a support for teachers if needed. All participants can access and/or provide usual services. Teachers will work with one student in their classroom with ADHD, ASD, or LD throughout the intervention phase. Each session in the program will provide factual information to teachers, strategies for implementation of best practices to address the specific mental health disorder in the classroom setting (i.e., ADHD, ASD, or LD), and access to additional help and advice.

Teacher Help Intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 6 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17), Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may not qualify if:

• Potential psychologists who meet any of the following criteria are not eligible to participate in the study:
• Are planning to be on a leave of absence at any time during the duration of the study
• Work within a school system where there is no English instruction
• Potential teachers must meet the following criteria to be eligible to participate in this study:
• Work in a regular classroom setting in the public-school system in grades 1-12 with English as the language of instruction
• Currently have one student in their classroom with ADHD, LD, or ASD who they would like to help by using this program
• The parent and student have agreed to participate
• Potential teachers who meet any of the following criteria are not eligible to participate in the study:
• The teacher participated in any of the previous Teacher Help studies
• Plan to be on a leave of absence at any time during the duration of this study
• Potential families (i.e., parents and students) must meet the following criteria to be eligible for this study. Specifically, we are looking for families where:
• The child attends public school in the English stream grades 1 to 12
• The child has been diagnosed with ADHD, LD or ASD.
• a. For students with ADHD or ASD, the child will need to have been diagnosed by a physician or psychologist. For students with LD, the child will need to have been diagnosed by a psychologist. Documentation on the student's file should indicate this diagnosis. We will not ask for this documentation, but request that the collaborating school psychologist confirms that this documentation exists and to indicate when the diagnosis was made and by what type of health professional (e.g., physician, psychologist)
• The child spends at least two-thirds of their class time inside the typical classroom (i.e., no more than one-third of class time is spent in a special education setting)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• IWK Health Centre: lead

Study Sites (1)

Dalhousie University

Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 2R1, Canada

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity; Autism Spectrum Disorder; Learning Disabilities

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Mental Disorders; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive; Communication Disorders; Neurobehavioral Manifestations; Neurologic Manifestations; Nervous System Diseases; Signs and Symptoms; Pathological Conditions, Signs and Symptoms

Study Officials

• Penny V Corkum, PhD

  Dalhousie University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: September 22, 2016
• First Posted: September 29, 2016
• Study Start: January 1, 2018
• Primary Completion: June 28, 2019
• Study Completion: September 1, 2019
• Last Updated: September 22, 2025

Record last verified: 2019-08

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

CA (1)