The results from Lisa Greenberg’s study demonstrated treatment benefits rarely seen in psychological programs. Children who come to Quest struggling to make friends, handling frustration and conquering their fears, leave with increased self-esteem and improved peer and family relationships.

Their fears and frustrations are reduced and behavioral problems become less influential in their lives. In the research study, gains were found across diagnostic, ethnic, age, income, medication status and gender groups and across clinical importance measures, including reliable change, clinical equivalence, effect size, and global impairment indices.

Quest Therapeutic Camp demonstrates large effects in improving overall functioning in different settings and medium effect sizes in reducing problem behaviors and improving social skills based on parent and counselor report.

The decrease in CBCL aggression corroborates past findings related to aggression in children with ADHD. Theories of ADHD link aggression and emotion regulation to deficits in behavior inhibition.

Elements of Quest Camp – like goals related to impulse control, token-based reinforcement, and teaching of critical thinking strategies – are designed to address deficits in behavioral inhibition.

It is possible that these interventions are responsible for improved impulse control, resulting in decreased aggression. Another explanation for the changes in aggression could be related to Quest’s emotion regulation interventions – like coping skills training and emotional labeling.

In the camp setting, opportunities to use more appropriate coping skills – like deep breathing or progressive relaxation – are plentiful, and campers who use such skills are reinforced.