Research Finds Training Program Reduces Crash Rates for Teenage Drivers with ADHD - Saint Louis University

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The study, published successful the New England Journal of Medicine, was co-authored by a SLU psychologist

ST. LOUIS – Research published successful the New England Journal of Medicine has shown that a computerized programme enhanced with driving simulation grooming with feedback lowers the hazard of car crashes for teenagers with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Annie Artiga Garner, Ph.D., subordinate prof of science astatine Saint Louis University, is simply a co-investigator successful the study, which was led by Jeffrey N. Epstein, Ph.D., a pediatric scientist with the Division of Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology astatine Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

Annie Garner

Annie Artiga Garner, Ph.D., is an subordinate prof of science astatine Saint Louis University. Photo by Sarah Conroy. 

The study, “Trial of Training to Reduce Driver Inattention successful Teens with ADHD” was published online connected Dec. 1, successful the New England Journal of Medicine.

Teenagers with ADHD are astatine an accrued hazard of car crashes. The survey evaluated a computerized skills grooming people designed to trim agelong looks distant from the road and absorption attraction backmost connected the roadway. 

The programme decreases risky long-glance behaviour astatine 1 and six months aft training compared to accepted drivers’ acquisition and reduced clang oregon near-crash hazard during a twelvemonth of naturalistic driving conditions.

“We cognize that those with ADHD truly request practices that reflector what happens successful the existent world,” Garner said. “Skills learned successful an situation that is arsenic adjacent to real-world conditions arsenic imaginable are amended implemented erstwhile they spell retired driving. A basal computer programme isn’t arsenic effective.”

“Anything longer than 2 seconds increases the hazard of a clang oregon a near-crash happening.”

Annie Artiga Garner, Ph.D.

Licensed drivers aged 16-19 were randomly assigned successful a 1:1 ratio to Enhanced Focuses Concentration and Attention Learning (FOCAL+), a programme that targets simplification in the fig of long-glances distant from the road, oregon to enhanced accepted driver education. A agelong glimpse is defined arsenic thing much than 2 seconds.

“Anything longer than 2 seconds increases the hazard of a clang oregon a near-crash happening,” Garner said.

She said the FOCAL+ programme included eye-tracking monitors coordinated with an auditory alarm for each league to springiness contiguous feedback.

“Teenagers with ADHD request contiguous feedback – you person to archer them astatine the moment, not aft a league is complete,” Garner said. “The strategy employed an auditory component which would beep astatine them until they brought their eyes backmost to the road.”

Garner said the interventionists successful the grooming employed skills already identified arsenic palmy successful keeping those with ADHD motivated, including contiguous feedback and praise for bully choices.

The FOCAL+ programme is devised to trim glimpse duration to distracting tasks by training teens to usage repeated but little glances betwixt the secondary task of looking astatine a roadworthy representation and the roadway during a desktop machine simulation.  

In driving simulator grooming pursuing the desktop training, survey participants wore peculiar glasses which tracked oculus and caput movements portion they maneuvered a steering instrumentality and pedals.

Following the training, an in-vehicle camera monitored the driving habits of the study participants for a year.

“We cognize that driving behaviour is beauteous bully erstwhile ma oregon dada is successful the car,” Garner said. “It is during those archetypal months of being a caller driver, unsocial successful the vehicle without idiosyncratic other paying attraction for you, that we spot crashes.”

Garner trained the coders who went done the much than 6,000 recordings of teens’ real-world driving successful their ain cars, performed information investigation and co-wrote the paper.

“The execution of this survey required an interdisciplinary squad of researchers including engineering, cognition and quality factors researchers, and objective kid psychologists,” Garner said. 

Additional authors see Adam W. Kiefer, Ph.D., Department of Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina astatine Chapel Hill; James Peugh, Ph.D., Department of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine; Leanne Tamm, Ph.D., Department of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine; Ryan P. MacPherson, M.S., Department of Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina astatine Chapel Hill; John O. Simon, M.A., Department of Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; and Donald L. Fisher, Ph.D., Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, U.S. Department of Transportation.

This enactment was supported by assistance fig R01HD084430 (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and assistance 2UL1TR001425 (University of Cincinnati) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.

Saint Louis University

Founded successful 1818, Saint Louis University is 1 of the nation’s oldest and astir prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted successful Jesuit values and its pioneering past arsenic the first assemblage westbound of the Mississippi River, SLU offers much than 13,500 students a rigorous, transformative acquisition of the full person. At the halfway of the University’s diverse assemblage of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to marque the satellite a better, much conscionable place.

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