Studies on the Hyperactive Child I: Some Preliminary Findings

Abstract

In this study of 28 hyperactive children and 28 controls, there is a tendency (P=.09) for more hyperactives than normals to report a history of accidents of pregnancy, delivery and postnatal life which could have caused brain damage. There is no evidence, however, that mothers of hyperactives are predisposed by virtue of such factors as age, parity, abortion rate or general ill health, to produce brain damage in the fœtus. Hyperactives were reported significantly more often than controls to have been hyperirritable during the first three to six months of life but these findings should be interpreted with some reservation because of possible selectivity in history-taking. EEG data suggest a significant excess of minor dysrhythmias and a deficit of centrencephalic and epileptiform patterns among hyperactives as compared with controls. It is concluded that the behavioural syndrome of chronic hyperactivity is not caused only by brain damage, though this is one of the possible aetiological agents. Other causes which could prove important are constitutional activity level, anxiety, and aberrant maturational development.