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Basic-Needs Well-Being Track for Student ADHD Coaching

A curriculum for student ADHD coaches that focuses on the student's overall happiness and confidence.

A licensed add-on curriculum for ADHD coaching programs at high schools and universities that deliberately targets autonomy, relatedness, and competence — and tracks well-being as the primary outcome — closing the gap where coaching reliably improves executive function but rarely improves how students feel.

MedicineAttention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity DisorderHigher-education student support services and ADHD coaching providers

Concept

A structured, semester-long add-on for existing ADHD coaching programs used by high-school and college students. Standard coaching sessions focus on organization, time management, and study skills; this track adds a parallel needs agenda each week: one autonomy exercise (the student sets the goal and method, the coach resists prescribing), one relatedness action (a study group, mentor check-in, or club), and one competence milestone (a small, visible mastery the student can point to). Coaches receive session scripts, a brief needs-satisfaction check-in scale, and a dashboard reporting well-being and need satisfaction alongside the usual academic metrics, so programs can demonstrate outcomes beyond symptoms. Sold as a licensed curriculum with coach training to universities, independent coaching providers, and coach-training schools.

Why now

The new review [0] quantifies the gap this module fills: ADHD coaching improved symptoms and executive functioning in 18 of 19 studies, but improved well-being in only 6 of 19 — coaching works for function but not reliably for how students feel. The paper's Self-Determination Theory framework supplies the missing mechanism: well-being is driven by satisfaction of autonomy, relatedness, and competence, which standard coaching does not deliberately target. Older corpus work [3] documents the persistent translational gap between ADHD science and interventions that actually change lives, which a mechanism-targeted, well-being-first curriculum directly addresses.

Written by GLM · 11 Oct 2026

AI assessment

Backed by 2 papers92

A highly focused, evidence-backed curriculum that addresses a specific, quantified gap in ADHD coaching outcomes by applying Self-Determination Theory.

Evidence strength
5/5
The idea is directly derived from a specific finding in the provided text that 18/19 studies showed EF improvement but only 6/19 showed well-being improvement, providing a clear empirical mandate for the intervention.
Market pull
4/5
The named beneficiaries are established institutions with existing coaching budgets who have a vested interest in improving student retention and mental health outcomes.
Novelty & moat
4/5
While other ADHD tools focus on EF or peer support, this is the first to specifically operationalize the SDT framework (autonomy, relatedness, competence) as a licensed coaching add-on.
Feasibility
5/5
The MVP is a low-tech set of scripts, scales, and a dashboard, requiring no complex software development or clinical trials to begin piloting.
Wedge clarity
5/5
The wedge is a sharp, specific 'add-on' to existing programs rather than a replacement, making it an easy 'yes' for program directors.
Simplicity / focus
5/5
The product is a single, focused curriculum with one clear goal: improving well-being metrics alongside executive function.

Scored by Gemma 4 · 11 Oct 2026. Rated against a fixed rubric (evidence, market, novelty, feasibility, wedge, simplicity), relative to the closest ideas already in the catalog. A prior estimate to compare ideas before real-world signal arrives.

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Who benefits

  • University of Arizona SALT Centerorganization

    A comprehensive fee-based support program for students with ADHD and learning differences; a well-being track gives it an outcome story beyond academics for its coaching model.

  • Edge Foundationorganization

    A nonprofit that provides ADHD coaching to students; a licensed well-being curriculum strengthens its results reporting to schools and funders.

  • JST Coaching & Trainingcompany

    Trains coaches who work with youth and college students; licensing this curriculum adds a differentiated, evidence-based module to its training catalog.

  • ADD Coach Academycompany

    An accredited ADHD coach training school; a needs-based well-being module extends its curriculum with a mechanism-targeted differentiator.

  • Landmark Collegeorganization

    A college serving students with learning differences and ADHD; it could adopt the track across its coaching and peer-mentor programs to improve non-academic outcomes.

Research it builds on

  1. Annual Research Review: Perspectives on progress in ADHD science – from characterization to cause
    Edmund J. S. Sonuga-Barke, Stephen P. Becker, Sven Bölte et al. · 2022 · 150 citations
    All ideas from this paper →
  2. Studying Motivation in ADHD: The Role of Internal Motives and the Relevance of Self Determination Theory
    Sarah Morsink, Saskia Van der Oord, Inge Antrop et al. · 2021 · 119 citations
    All ideas from this paper →
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feasibility