Motor function may differentiate attention deficit hyperactivity disorder from early onset bipolar disorder.

Background: Differentiating between bipolar spectrum disorder (BD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in childhood and adolescence is difficult because the clinical presentation is influenced by ongoing neural development, causing considerable symptom overlap. Motor problems and neurological soft signs have been associated with ADHD for decades. Little is known about motor skills in BD.

Psychosocial impairment is significant in young referred children with and without psychiatric diagnoses and cognitive delays--applicability and reliability of diagnoses in face of co-morbidity.

"Subthreshold" psychiatric symptoms with clinically significant psychosocial impairment are a diagnostic problem. They may reduce the reliability of classifications and the communicative value of diagnostic descriptions when specific diagnostic categories cannot be applied. This study was undertaken in order to test the reliability and applicability of psychiatric diagnoses and psychosocial functioning scores as well as differences in psychosocial impairment in children referred to a neuropsychiatric outpatient unit.