The Conversation: Focusing on a child’s strengths can help them thrive after an ADHD, autism diagnosis

Focusing on a child’s strengths can have a powerful impact on children and parents, researchers say. Photo / 123rf

• Parents often seek assessments for conditions such as autism and ADHD, focusing on challenges.
• A new strengths checklist helps identify children’s skills, boosting motivation and self-esteem.
• Research aims to integrate strengths into neurodevelopmental assessments for more effective, personalised support.

When parents are concerned about their child’s development, they often seek an assessment to address concerns and identify any conditions, such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or learning disorders.

Common worries include difficulties making friends, focusing on tasks, or meeting educational goals.

It might seem counter-intuitive, but assessments are starting to focus on a child’s strengths during this process. This can create powerful opportunities to improve child and family outcomes, particularly when too much of the focus is on challenges in the family home, school, and play settings.

There is, however, a lack of evidence about how to do such assessments and how certain strengths can be used in assessment.

In a new research paper, we have developed a strengths checklist for parents, carers and clinicians to more easily identify children’s skills, talents and positive qualities — and understand the type of support they need at home, school or socially.

The aim was to provide an easy way for parents and clinicians to identify strengths in children and to provide a method for studying the role of strengths in development. This assessment can be used alongside more established assessments of challenges.

Why highlight a child’s strengths?

Focusing on a child’s strengths can have a powerful impact on children and parents. It can boost a child’s motivation, self-esteem, cognitive skills, language development, problem-solving abilities and build stronger relationships.

For parents and caregivers, it can increase their own feelings of self-worth and improve the quality of their relationship with their own children.

When parents and caregivers believe in their children’s abilities and encourage their strengths, children and families thrive.

However, there are many gaps in research about how to apply a strengths-based approach in the context of a neurodevelopmental assessment.

Currently, while the basic principle of incorporating strengths is clear, clinicians need to rely on intuition and creativity to guide their practices.

We have long needed better evidence-based methods to guide this.

This is where our research comes in

Our new study used the Sydney Child Neurodevelopment Research Registry, which aims to improve the neurodevelopmental assessment processes and the evidence for what works for families and clinicians. We asked caregivers to identify their child’s strengths on their first assessment visit.

Nearly 700 caregivers reported an average of 2.8 strengths about their children. Using these themes, we developed a child strengths checklist to use for clinical assessments.

We showed caregivers identified six categories of child strengths: cognitive and intellectual, social and interpersonal, hobbies and passions, character and personality, physical, and resilient behaviours.

Some caregivers might report that while their child had difficulty with peer interactions, they were also kind, affectionate, honest and caring.

Other caregivers described concerns about cognitive delays, but they also described how children persevered and persisted with tasks.

Researchers say focusing on a child’s strengths can boost a child’s motivation, self-esteem, cognitive skills, language development, problem-solving abilities and build stronger relationships.. Photo / 123rf

Analysing the data qualitatively — where we read caregiver transcripts and extracted themes — we captured the richness and detail of unique strengths. We identified 61 unique strengths.

With community representatives and clinicians, we used this to develop a strengths-based checklist we’re calling the Child Autism and Neurodevelopment Strengths Checklist, or the Cans checklist.

This type of research will provide the evidence needed to be able to implement national guidelines and to develop better evidence about how strengths can be used to improve outcomes. We want to develop best practices for combining concerns and strengths into feedback, support plans and intervention strategies.

What can caregivers and clinicians do now?

Support schemes, including the National Disability Insurance Scheme (Ndis), often require families to highlight what children can’t do. Still, there are some practical ways caregivers and clinicians can ensure a child’s strengths are kept front and centre.

For caregivers, along with discussing concerns, reflect on and talk with your clinicians about your child’s strengths. Make sure clinicians keep these in mind when devising supports.

For both caregivers and clinicians, it can be helpful to think about characteristics often seen as challenges — such as a strong need for routine — as also potential strengths. It may lead to new ways of supporting children. With the right environment and support, these traits can be valuable assets in a child’s development.

When parents and caregivers believe in their child’s abilities and encourage their strengths, children and families thrive. Photo / 123rf

For clinicians, consider how a child’s strengths can inform your assessment and intervention strategies. Make sure you don’t only focus on what children can’t do or need support with.

Communicate clearly about the child’s strengths and consider how these strengths can:

• support the child’s long-term development and goals. If the child thrives on routine and pays close attention to details, showing them how to embrace these strengths can teach them how to use them to reach their own goals and to be more independent;
• be the target of an intervention. Everyone needs to experience success. Designing activities around strengths can make intervention more enjoyable and engaging, and the effects are more likely to be long-lasting;
• be used to support the wellbeing of families. Helping families focus on each other’s strengths and improve the way family members talk about and support one another creates a positive environment where they can all feel valued, respected and cared for.

By focusing on strengths, we want to create more effective and personalised support for children with neurodevelopmental conditions to reach their full potential.

Building a strong, evidence-based approach will help ensure children’s strengths are consistently considered in assessments and intervention planning.