Obstetric complications in children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Learning Disability
Published 2020-12-01
Keywords
- ADHD,
- learning disabilities,
- obstetric complications
How to Cite

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Abstract
This study aims to determine whether children with ADHD and learning disabilities (LD) have a significant history of obstetrical complications when compared to children with ADHD but without LD. Methods: Sixty-four children aged 6 to 12 years diagnosed with ADHD were assessed for a history of obstetrical complications using the Kinney medical and gynecological questionnaire. Learning ability was appraised using the Wide-Range Achievement Test (WRAT-R) for anglophone students and the "Test de Rendement Français" for francophone students. Results: Children with ADHD and a learning disability in mathematics had a higher rate of neonatal complications of great severity (p = 0.01) than children with ADHD and no disability in mathematics. Children with ADHD and a learning disability in reading also had a preponderance of neonatal complications of high severity (p = 0.02) compared to their peers with ADHD and no learning disability in reading. Children with ADHD and learning disability tend to have a significant history of neonatal complications, which validates the theory that complications in early life could adversely affect a child's academic ability later in life. This further confirms the importance of the perinatal and postnatal periods in CNS development of brain regions essential for mathematics and reading ability.
Downloads
References
- Anderson J, Williams S, McGee R, Silva PA. The prevalence of DSM-III disorders in a large sample of pre-adolescent children from the general population. Arch Gen Psychiatry 44:69-81; 1987
- Faraone SV, Biederman J, Milberger S. An exploratory study of ADHD among second-degree relatives of ADHD children. Am J Psychiatry 35:398-402; 1994
- Cadoret RJ, Stewart MA.An adoption study of attention deficit/hyperactivity/aggression and their relationship to adult antiscoial personality. Comprehensive Psychiatry 32:73-82;1991
- Eaves LJ, Silberg JL, Meyer JM et al. Genetics and developmental psychopathology: 2. The main effects of genes and environment on behavioural problems in the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development. J of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines 38:965-980; 1997
- McGuffin P, Martin N. Science, medicine, and the future. Behaviour and genes. BMJ 319:37-40; 1999.
- Milberger S, Biederman J, Faraone SV, Guite J, Tsuang MT.Pregnancy, delivery and infancy complications and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: issues of gene-environment interaction. Biol Psychiatry 41:65-75; 1997
- Ben-Amor L, Grizenko N, Doan J et al. Perinatal complications in children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and their non-affected siblings. J of Psychiatry and Neuroscience 30(2):120-126; 2005 Vol. 8 No. 2 Obstetric Complications 113
- Geary DC. Mathematical disorders: An overview for educators. International Dyslexia Association: Perspectives. 26:6-9; 2000.
- Sousa DA. How the special needs brain learns. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Corwin, 2001
- Shaywitz SE, Shaywitz BA, Fletcher JM, Escobar MD. Prevalence of reading disability in boys and girls: results of the Connecticut longitudinal study. JAMA 264:998-1001; 1990.
- Biederman J, Newcorn J, Sprich S. Comorbidity of attention deficit with conduct, depressive, anxiety and other disorders. Am J Psychiatry 148:564-577; 1991.
- Faraone SV, Biederman J, Lehman BK et al. Evidence for the independent familial transmission of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities: results from a family genetic study. Am J Psychiatry 150:891-895; 1993
- Tirosh E, Berger J, Cohen-Ophir M, Davidovitch M, Cohen A. Learning disabilities with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: parent's and teacher's perspective. J Child Neuro 13:261-270; 1998.
- Lazar JW, Frank Y. Frontal systems dysfunction in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and learning disabilities. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 10:160-167; 1998.
- Barkley RA. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: a handbook for diagnosis and treatment. New York: Guilford Press, 1990.
- Wechsler D. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, 3rd ed. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation, 1991.
- Jastak S, Wilkinson GS. The Wide Range Achievement Test, Revised. Wilmington, Del: Jastak Associates, 1985.
- Sarrazin G. Test de Rendement pour Francophones. Toronto, ON: Harcourt & Brace, 1995.
- McNeil TF, Cantor-Graae E, Sjostrom K. Obstetric complications as antecedents of schizophrenia: empirical effects of using different obstetric complication sacles. J Psychiatr Res 28:519-530; 1994.
- McNeil TF, Sjostrom K. McNeil-Sjostrom scale for obstetric complications. Department of psychiatry, Lund University, Malmo, Sweden. 1995
- Breslau N, Brown GG, DelDotto JE et al. Psychiatric sequelae of low birth weight at 6 years of age. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 24:385-400; 1996.
- McGrath MM, Sullivan MC, Lester BM, Oh W. Longitudinal neurologic follow-up in neonatal intensive care unit survivors with various neonatal morbidities. Pediatrics 106: 1397-1405; 2000.
- Hartsough CS, Lambert NM. Medical factors in hyperactive and normal children: prenatal, developmental, and health history findings. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 55:190-201; 1985.
- Johnson, E. O., & Breslau, N. Increased risk of learning disabilities in low birthweight boys at age 11 years. Biological Psychiatry, 47: 490-500; 2000
- Brake WG, Sullivan RM, Gratton A. Perinatal distress leads to lateralized medial prefrontal cortical dopamine hypofunction in adult rats. J Neurosci 20:5538-5543; 2000.
- Chandola CA, Robling MR, Peters TJ, Melville-Thomas G, McGuffin P. Pre- and perinatal factors and the risk of subsequent referral for hyperactivity. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines 33:1077-1090; 1992.
- Gould E, McEwen BS, Tanapat P, Galea LAM, Fuchs E. Neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of the adult tree shrew is regulated by psychosocial stress and NMDA receptor activation. J Neurosci 17:2492-2498; 1997.
- Lou HC. Perinatal hypoxic-ischemic brain damage andintraventricular hemorrhage. A pathogenetic model. Arch Neurol 37:585-587; 1980.