New research supports adding risperidone (brand name Risperdal) and parental training to traditional attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder medications for kids with severe aggression."Studies have shown that the regimen of psychotropic and stimulant medications, in addition to parental training, helps relieve childhood anxiety and reduces disruptive behavior. The new study results confirm previous findings by researchers at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and three other institutions. They have showed that when children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and serious physical aggression were prescribed both a stimulant and an antipsychotic drug — along with teaching parents behavior management techniques — they had a reduction of aggressive and serious disruptive behavior. The new study, by L. Eugene Arnold, M.D., and Michael Aman, Ph.D., has been published online in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology (JCAP). Risperidone was first approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an antipsychotic medication for treating schizophrenia more than 20 years ago, and its use has expanded to include symptoms of bipolar disorder and autism spectrum disorders. It has not yet been okayed for treating aggression in ADHD. Researchers showed the addition of risperidone to parent training and a stimulant also improves teachers’ assessments of anxiety and social avoidance. Improvement in teacher-rated anxiety and social withdrawal also contributed to improvements in parent-rated disruptive behavior. Children who showed reduced anxiety also showed less disruptive behavior. For the “Treatment of Severe Childhood Aggression (TOSCA) Study,” 168 children (ages 6-12) who had been diagnosed with ADHD and disruptive behavior disorder (DBD) and displayed severe physical aggression were randomly assigned to two groups. The first group consisted of parent training plus stimulant plus placebo (Basic treatment) and the second group parent training plus stimulant plus the antipsychotic drug risperidone (Augmented treatment). All participants received only parent training plus stimulant for the first three weeks of the nine-week study. “We wanted to see if we could expand or augment treatment by adding a second medication. So, we added a placebo for the ‘Basic group’ and added risperidone for the ‘Augmented group,’ if there was room for improvement at the end of the third week,” said Aman, also coordinating principal investigator of the multi-site study."

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