The Daily Report Card (DRC) can be a helpful tool to address the classroom behavior problems of children with ADHD.  The DRC helps parents and educators collaborate to identify, watch, and improve a student’s classroom behavior.

The following steps offer a guide for establishing a successful Daily Report Card.

Select the Areas for Improvement

It is important to involve the student’s parents and all of his or her educators in a discussion of his or her behavior.

First, find the greatest areas of impairment – areas that, if changed, would improve the student’s major struggles in daily life functioning and, if left unchanged, would have long-term negative consequences.

Define goals toward which the child is working in terms of these areas of impairment.

• Peer relations (particularly decreasing aggression and other negative interactions)
• Academic work (task completion and accuracy)
• Classroom rule-following and relationships with adults (compliance with adult commands/requests)

Determine How the Goals will be Defined

Identify specific target behaviors that can be changed to help make progress towards the improvement goals.

When establishing target behaviors, remember:

• Target behaviors must be meaningful behaviors that will help the child reach goals for improvement.
• Target behaviors must be very clearly defined in a way that the child, teacher, and parents all understand.
• Target behaviors must be able to be observed and counted by the teacher and child.
• A good DRC will contain between 3 and 8 target behaviors, depending on the child’s age and ability.

Examples of target behaviors include:

Peer relationships:

• Billy does not interrupt other students during seat work time
• Joey does not touch others without permission
• Sally plays without fighting at recess

Academic work:

• Jimmy has materials necessary to complete tasks
• Jimmie completes assigned tasks without getting out of her seat
• Betty Lou completes and returns homework on time

Classroom rule-following and relationships with adults:

• Sam immediately obeys the teacher when directions are given
• Megan does not talk back to the teacher
• Melody waits to be called on or given permission by the teacher before talking

Set Criteria for the Daily Report Card

Estimate about how often a student is doing the behaviors you want to stop.

Use existing records if available or observe the student for a few days and make notes about how often she struggles with the chosen target behavior during the day.

Only include targets that are significant to the child’s improvement.  For example, if records show that the child does not interrupt as often as you thought, do not include interruption of other children as a target behavior.

Set a reasonable goal for each target behavior.  Establish a reachable target level the child will have to meet to receive a positive mark for that behavior.

• A good goal is one that the student can earn between 75% to 90% of the time.
• Set the first goal at a rate slightly better than what the student is doing now to encourage improvement (e.g., 20% improvement).
• Goals need to be possible and within reach as perceived by both the student and the teacher.

Set criteria to be met for each part of the day, not the overall day (e.g., “interrupts fewer than 2 times in each class period” rather than “interrupts fewer than 12 times per day”).

Explain the Daily Report Card to the Student

The teachers, parents and student should meet together to discuss all aspects of the DRC in a positive way.

Explain that the DRC will help him learn how to overcome those problems that are causing him and his teachers the most difficulty.

Explain that he will be earning rewards for his behavior and performance at school to help him learn, and that he will be working with his parents to choose rewards.

Explain the procedure for using the report card.

Establish a Home-Based Reward System

The rewards are the motivation for the student to work towards a good DRC, and they are thus a necessary part of the program.

Use an effective reward system established at home to reinforce the student for positive performance reflected in the DRC.  (See Economics 101).

• Rewards must be selected by the student (with the parents).
• Rewards should include things the child already does.  For example, a child’s access to television, which was previously “free” can be made conditional on receiving a positive DRC.

Monitor and Modify the Program

Keep daily records of how often the student is receiving Yeses on each target.

If the student regularly fails to meet criteria, make his criteria easier to avoid making the process ineffective.

Gradually lead the student to more appropriate behavior by making the criteria harder once he has begun to meet the goal regularly (e.g., if he is able to meet a target of “3 or fewer rule violations per period” 90% of the time, over a period of days, cut the number to 2 or fewer rule violations per period).

Remember to combine the report with the right social reinforcement: