Timothy Wigal, PhD
The executive director of the University of California
Irvine, Child Development Program and a licensed psychologist, Dr. Wigal
is a leading expert in research diagnosis of Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and the evaluation of treatment
interventions with children with developmental disorders including
preschoolers. He has designed and implemented numerous clinical trial
protocols seeking evidence for both drug and non drug treatment effects
in children with ADHD. Dr. Wigal is the principal investigator at
the UC-Irvine site for the Multimodal Treatment study of Children with
ADHD (MTA) and the Preschool ADHD Treatment Study (PATS). Dr.Wigal
has a doctorate in neuropsychology and is adjunct professor of
pediatrics at UC Irvine. In addition, Dr. Wigal oversees the
clinical treatment components that directly provide services to families
and children with ADHD and related disorders including autism spectrum
disorder.
Session: SR1-Research Symposium II-MULTISITE
RANDOMIZED CLINICAL TRIALS: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT ADHD FROM THE
MTA?; LITTLE CHILDREN, BIG CHALLENGES: Treatment of Preschoolers with
ADHD
Large clinical trials are the fastest and
safest way to discover effective treatments under controlled conditions
for disorders of childhood including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD). The NIMH-funded Multimodal Treatment of
ADHD (MTA) study was a multisite study designed to evaluate the leading
treatments for ADHD, including behavior therapy, medications, and the
combination of the two in elementary-aged children. The study's
treatment phase lasted 14 months and the observational longitudinal
follow-up, currently in its 16th year, at seven sites in the
US and Canada, is ongoing and being funded by NIDA. It is difficult to maintain followup over long periods of time
but longitudinal studies can provide valuable information on outcomes as
children mature and face other developmental problems. Longitudinal
studies also present analytic challenges, in particular with regard to
missing data and assessing the effect of treatment. The MTA follow-up
results will be presented in terms of substance abuse issues and other
measures of impairment that impact young adults diagnosed with ADHD as
children. This symposium will be presented in conjunction with Larry
Greenhill, MD who will be describing the PATS longitudinal study
outcomes.
| 
