Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ArticlesADHD in Swedish 3- to 7-Year-Old Children
Section snippets
METHOD
Children (n = 262), 3 to 7 years of age, were studied in detail in a prospective, controlled, longitudinal survey of intervention effects in ADHD. There were 49 three-year-olds, 62 four-year-olds, 65 five-year-olds, 39 six-year-olds, and 47 seven-year-olds. Swedish children, at the time of this study, started school at age 7 years. The 7-year-olds were included in the study before or upon starting school. The study groups comprised 131 children (101 boys, 30 girls) with ADHD and 131 children
Characteristics of the ADHD Group According to Parent Interview
The mean number of ADHD symptoms shown by each child was 12.2 (SD 2.1). Children with ADHD had higher rates of symptoms on the hyperactivity-impulsivity factor than on the attention dysfunction factor (6.8, SD 2.2 versus 5.4, SD 2.0;p < .01) according to parent interview.
Characteristics of Children With ADHD at Clinical Observation
The rate of observed problems at clinical evaluation of the child is shown in Table 1. Only 6% of the 131 children with ADHD were judged to be problem-free at clinical examination. Collapsed problem scores ranged from 0 to 8. A
DISCUSSION
This is among the first systematic, controlled, relatively large-scale studies of preschool children with ADHD. Previous studies have been retrospective. The present results should therefore be of particular interest to clinicians and researchers working with young children.
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This work was supported by grants from the Swedish Council for Social Research ( grant 97-0223), Swedish Foundation for Health Care Sciences and Allergy Research ( grant V97-320), and Swedish MRC ( grant K2000-21X-11251-06C) to Christopher Gillberg.