Developmental Trajectory of Motor Deficits in Preschool Children with ADHD.

Motor deficits persisting into childhood (>7 years) are associated with increased executive and cognitive dysfunction, likely due to parallel neural circuitry. This study assessed the longitudinal trajectory of motor deficits in preschool children with ADHD, compared to typically developing (TD) children, in order to identify individuals at risk for anomalous neurological development. Participants included 47 children (21 ADHD, 26 TD) ages 4-7 years who participated in three visits (V1, V2, V3), each one year apart (V1=48-71 months, V2=60-83 months, V3=72-95 months).

Anomalous Brain Development Is Evident in Preschoolers With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Objectives: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurological disorder with symptom onset early in childhood. Growing evidence suggests anomalous brain development across multiple brain regions is evident in school-aged children; however, few studies have examined whether such differences are notable in the preschool years when symptom onset typically occurs.

Methods: High resolution anatomical (MPRAGE) images and cognitive and behavioral measures were analyzed in a total of 90 medication-naïve preschoolers, ages 4-5 years (52 with ADHD, 38 controls; 64.

Development and validation of an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) executive function and behavior rating screening battery.

Attention problems are ubiquitous in clinical practice, commonly found in many childhood learning and behavior disorders. Practitioners need cost- and time-effective methods for determining whether children have attention problems due to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or numerous other conditions. This study examined the utility of a 15-minute ADHD screening battery designed to differentiate ADHD (including inattentive, IT, and combined, CT, subtypes), specific learning disability (SLD), and typical child samples.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) comorbidity: a case for "pure" Tourette syndrome?

More than a decade of research regarding the motoric characteristics of the attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that accompanies Tourette syndrome has revealed unique anatomic and neurobehavioral differences and highlighted the importance of distinguishing children with this form from the 40% of children with Tourette syndrome who do not have ADHD. This distinction is important in providing guidance to parents and to patients and in formulating expectations for short- and long-term prognoses. In addition, study methodologies that fail to categorize patients in this way and instead involve covarying for dimensional symptoms of ADHD obscure biologically distinctive circuits and clinically meaningful patient characteristics.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: the childhood co-morbidity that most influences the disability burden in Tourette syndrome.

ADHD is a complex co-morbidity, as it is heteregeneous in terms of the clinical subtypes, but also in terms of the circuits involved and the level of involvement within those circuits. Specially focusing on the relationship of ADHD to TS, this author's studies have added some neurobehavioral and some anatomical magnetic resonance imaging evidence suggesting the ADHD occurring with TS, appears like "garden-variety" ADHD, at least in the matched research sample. The similarities of neuroanatomical findings in the TS plus ADHD and ADHD groups and their distinctness from neuroanatomical findings in childdren with "pure TS provide some parallels to the observed similarity of functional deficit in TS plus ADHD and ADHD alone groups and the relative lack of functional deficits in children with TS only.

Performance on measures of executive function following pediatric traumatic brain injury.

Objective: To investigate the relationships among age at injury, neuroanatomic lesion location, and measures of executive function (EF) following paediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Methods: EF was assessed in 68 children (aged 7-15) with moderate-to-severe TBI 1 year post-injury. EF tests included: (1) Tower of Hanoi (TOH), a measure of problem solving ability, (2) Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), a measure of categorization and ability to shift cognitive strategies, (3) Letter Fluency (LF), a measure of novel lexical search and rule-governed word generation.