Setting the classroom conditions right: determining and combining efficacious teacher-child interaction techniques to improve working memory performance in children with and without ADHD.

If we want to prepare children for adequate school functioning and performance, then working memory is of utmost importance according to longitudinal research. The current study aims to investigate the optimal classroom conditions in which working memory development in typical children and children with ADHD, who are significantly more impaired on working memory, can thrive most strongly. Protective elements of teacher-student interactions (TSI; e.g., praising or giving clear instructions) became the central focus of multiple intervention programs in order to set the classroom conditions right. Yet, up until now, we lack knowledge of which specific aspects of TSI contribute to this effect on working memory. As a consequence, existing working memory programs are at risk of 1) not integrating the most efficacious techniques to improve TSI, and 2) not making the most efficient and lenient combination of TSI techniques. The current project therefore aims to determine the (efficacious) TSI techniques to improve working memory performance in children with and without ADHD. Next, we examine which combination of efficacious TSI techniques will be most effective and efficient as a function of child characteristics. In order to achieve these aims, we will make use of respectively microtrials and single-case designs. Insights from this project will contribute to the development of more parsimonious, efficacious working memory programs for typical and atypical developing children in the future.