Thomas J. Power

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Thomas J. Power, PhD

Chief Psychologist, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Power's research focuses on the implementation of evidence-based interventions for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in community settings, including schools and primary care practices. The emphasis of his work is on developing the capacity of professionals in the community to provide evidence-based care for children and adolescents with attention, behavior, and emotional difficulties.

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Bio

A major focus of Dr. Power's research has been on developing and evaluating interventions to improve family involvement in education and student educational performance. With funding from NIMH, his team developed and tested a multi-modal intervention for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to address the academic problems of children in grades kindergarten through six. The intervention examined in these studies, Family-School Success, consisted of several evidence-based components that were adapted in response to ongoing feedback from teachers and parents.

Their research has demonstrated that parental involvement in treatment is significantly associated with improved parenting practices and child outcomes, and that improvements in parenting practices mediate the effect of intervention on academic performance. Dr. Power and his team are currently conducting a cluster-randomized trial in 20 schools to evaluate the effect of an organizational skills training program on the organizational skills and homework performance of students in upper elementary school.

Dr. Power's research has had a particular emphasis on service delivery in urban settings with children and families of low-income background from diverse racial and ethnic groups. As an example, with funding from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, his team developed and evaluated a multi-component intervention for children with ADHD, known as Partnering to Achieve School Success, based in urban primary care practices. Through this research, he studied the challenge of family involvement in intervention and identified factors associated with engagement in ADHD interventions based in primary care practices. This research served as the foundation for a study recently approved by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to evaluate the effectiveness of a behavioral intervention integrated into primary care practice to improve outcomes for children with ADHD from low-income families.