Tzvi Mor

Worldwide research has determined that the incidence of ADHD is 7.2%–9.5% among children and 11.8% among adolescents (Beller, Doust, Glasziou, Sanders, & Thomas, 2015). This chronic disorder exhibits progressive and changing needs in different stages throughout life, requiring varied treatment options suited to the different age groups. One particularly appropriate treatment for adolescents is multimodal intervention, that generally integrates pharmacological treatment with home and school-based strategies. In these instances, coaching constitutes a useful complement to academic supervision of multimodal therapy for students (Swartz, Prevatt, & Proctor, 2005). In Israel, coaching is still not regulated by law. Hence the study is essential for recognition of coaching as a respected profession, especially because of its contribution to students diagnosed with ADHD. The yeshiva high school provides a special study program for boys aged 13-18 that amounts to 26,840 students—about a third of the adolescents in Israel’s State Religious educational system (Ministry of Education—Religious Education Authority, 2019). The yeshiva high school day begins at 7:30 AM and ends at 7:00 PM. Some yeshiva high schools have boarding facilities, from which students return home once a week. The day is divided between religious and general studies. The former include the sacred texts of Judaism, especially the Talmud, that is taught during morning hours, while afternoons are devoted to language, mathematics, history, literature and science studies. The incidence of ADHD among adolescents who participate in personal coaching programs, especially adolescent yeshiva students with ADHD, has attracted very little research attention to date. The present study attempts to fill this research lacuna by revealing the special coping methods applied by the research population.