what is ACCESS

Program Description

ACCESS – Accessing Campus Connections & Empowering Student Success – is a research supported program based on Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principles that gives college students with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) the knowledge and skills necessary for academic, personal, and social success.

ACCESS utilizes elements of evidence-based CBT programs for adults with ADHD (Safren et al., 2005; Solanto, 2011) that have been adapted to meet the unique developmental needs of young adults attending college.

The goals of ACCESS are to:

  • Give students evidence-based knowledge of ADHD that is appropriate to their developmental level as young adults
  • Increase student awareness and mastery of behavioral strategies addressing their executive functioning needs (e.g., time management, organization, planning)
  • Teach students how to identify unhelpful/maladaptive thinking patterns and to replace them with helpful/adaptive thinking strategies
  • Increase student awareness and use of campus support services (e.g., disability accommodations, counseling, student health)

Conceptually, successful attainment of these goals makes it possible for students to begin displaying improvements in their behavioral, executive, emotional, academic, and/or general life functioning

   

Development

ACCESS was initially conceptualized, created, developed, and refined in an open clinical trial as part of the College STAR project (Supporting Transition Access Retention), funded by the Oak Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, and a consortium of private foundations in Greensboro, NC. Under the direction of Drs. Arthur D. Anastopoulos (Principal Investigator) and Joshua M. Langberg (Co-Principal Investigator), our research team completed a comprehensive examination of the benefits of ACCESS in the context of a four-year, randomized controlled trial study, funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) in the U.S. Department of Education. Findings from both trials lend strong support to its efficacy.

IES Disclaimer - ACCESS is a collaborative project among faculty at UNC Greensboro and Virginia Commonwealth University. This research was supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences (R305A150207). The opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily reflective of the position of or endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education.