Adoption studies have found that a child’s hyperactivity resembles that of his biological parents and not that of his adoptive parents. Other studies found that ADHD runs in families (Biederman, 1990). A twin study conducted in Australia got results that gave an 82 percent concordance rate for identical twins and 38 percent concordance rate for non-identical twins (Levy, 1997). The expression of the symptoms of ADHD is different at different stages in a person’s life. A lot of children exhibit hyperactive and impulsive behavior during the infancy and preschool period. There is a fine line between overactive infants and children with ADHD, which is why clinicians do not diagnose infants with ADHD until the behavior becomes age-inappropriate. Many children with ADHD will be diagnosed with the disorder by the time they are 9 or 10 years old, i.e. in middle childhood. Around 60 percent of these children might develop oppositional disorder because of the academic difficulties and social rejection by peers, teachers, and parents.
ADHD cartoon. Retrieved October 29, 2010, from:
Biederman, J., Faraone, S. V., Keenan, K., Knee, E., et al. (1990). Family-genetic and psychosocial risk factors in DSM-III attention deficit disorder. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29, 526-533.
Levy, F., Hay, D.A., McStephen, M., Wood, C., & Waldman, I. (1997). Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: a category or a continuum? Genetic analysis of a large-scale twin study. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 36, 737-744.
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