Children who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have impaired brain function, most likely linked to a genetic condition occurring during pregnancy.

Researchers have uncovered conclusive evidence that key areas of the brain in ADHD sufferers do not develop as quickly as in those children without ADHD.

Professor Alasdair Vance, academic head of child psychiatry at the Royal Children's Hospital, said the areas were related to a child's ability to encode information, hold information and understand time and space.

"So their ability to read other people's body language, to pick up on the nuances of what their peer group are up to, would clearly be affected by the sort of developmental delays in brain development that we've identified," he said.

The research is about to be published in the world's leading biological psychiatry journal, Molecular Psychiatry, and Professor Van ...

In the first major study of the use of medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), researchers found that parents of children on ADHD drugs were nine times more likely than other parents to use the drugs as well. As well, they found that if at least one parent and child were taking an ADHD medication, a second child was more likely to do so, too.

Physicians have long understood that ADHD runs in families and the findings of this new study support what they see in their practices, but not without some surprising discoveries.

In families where a parent and child both began taking ADHD medications last year, nearly half the time the parent did so first, according to the study. According to Dr. Thomas E. Brown, associate director of the Yale Clinic for Attention and Related Disorders, “Usually it’s the kid first, then the par ...