Overview of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in young children

Abstract

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a complex disorder, which can be seen as a disorder of life time, developing in preschool years and manifesting symptoms (full and/or partial) throughout the adulthood; therefore, it is not surprising that there are no simple solutions. The aim of this paper is to provide a short and concise review which can be used to inform affected children and adults; family members of affected children and adults, and other medical, paramedical, non-medical, and educational professionals about the disorder. This paper has also tried to look into the process of how ADHD develops; what are the associated problems; and how many other children and adults are affected by such problems all over the world basically to understand ADHD more precisely in order to develop a better medical and or non-medical multimodal intervention plan. If preschool teachers and clinicians are aware of what the research tells us about ADHD, the varying theories of its cause, and which areas need further research, the knowledge will assist them in supporting the families of children with ADHD. By including information in this review about the connection between biological behavior, it is hoped that preschool teachers and clinicians at all levels will feel more confident about explaining to parents of ADHD children, and older ADHD children themselves about the probable causes of ADHD.

Impairment in Attention Focus During the Posner Cognitive Task in Children With ADHD: An Eye Tracker Study

“…In the present study, in which, for the first time, eye-tracking was used to record eye movement latency in children with ADHD, we reported significant longer latency for children with ADHD only in the endogenous condition for the invalid sub-condition when compared to TD children. Our result reinforced previous findings, suggesting that children with ADHD have difficulties to voluntarily disengage their attention from an erroneous condition (invalid condition) in order to engage attention in the correct direction ( 31 , 32 ). Recently, in an fMRI study exploring the Posner task performance in 11 healthy adults, Meyer et al ( 33 ) showed that during the endogenous condition and invalid sub-condition, the cerebellar frontal activity of the left hemisphere was greater with respect to valid sub-condition.…”

Assessment of Attention Deficits in Adolescent Offspring Exposed to Maternal Type 1 Diabetes

“…Since learning difficulties and reduced academic achievement among children with attention deficits are well-known [1, 33], a potential association between maternal diabetes and attention deficits in the offspring is plausible and has been suggested in previous studies [8–11]. However, this was not supported by the findings of the present study.…”

Exploring Genetic Variation that Influences Brain Methylation in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

“…Structural and functional abnormalities in cerebellum and basal ganglia have further been associated with motor impairments 43 , which are frequent in nearly half of ADHD cases 44 . Other areas identified through our eQTL analysis have also been related to ADHD, for instance: i) Remarkable differences in the shapes of caudate-putamen basal ganglia and smaller volumes have been reported in ADHD boys in comparison to typically developing individuals [45][46][47][48] ; ii) in adult males with ADHD, right caudate volume correlates with poor accuracy on sensory selection tasks 49 and also with hyperactivity/impulsivity 50,51 ; iii) nucleus accumbens is one of the areas, together with the caudate nucleus, putamen, amygdala, and hippocampus, reported to be structurally altered in the brain of ADHD patients 52 . A delayed cortical development e.g.…”