1043-3155 Pediatr Neurol Briefs pedneurbriefs Pediatr Neurol Briefs Pediatric Neurology Briefs Pediatr Neurol Briefs 2166-6482 1043-3155 2166-3155 Pediatric Neurology Briefs Publishers Chicago, IL, USA PNB-14-56-b 10.15844/pedneurbriefs-14-7-15 Attention Disorders Neurology Pediatrics Nervous System Diseases Child Development Brain Diseases Neurosurgery Child Infant Specific Language Impairment with or without ADHD http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0173-7931 Millichap J. Gordon MD 1 2 * Division of Neurology, Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL Departments of Pediatrics and Neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL Correspondence: Dr. J. Gordon Millichap, E-mail: jgmillichap@northwestern.edu 07 2000 01 04 2016 14 7 56 56 Copyright: © 2000 The Author(s) 2000 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Specific language impairment with or without hyperactivity: neuropsychological evidence for frontostriatal dysfunction

A neuropsychological study of the association between specific language impairment (SLI) and hyperactivity was conducted on four groups of 6-year-old children (5 boys and 5 girls in each group) at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK.

 Specific Language Impairment Frontostriatal Dysfunction Hyperactivity

A neuropsychological study of the association between specific language impairment (SLI) and hyperactivity was conducted on four groups of 6-year-old children (5 boys and 5 girls in each group) at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK. Cognitive functioning on non-verbal tests was not adversely affected in the SLI group, but a test of attentional set shifting, sensitive to frontostriatal dysfunction, was impaired in the hyperactive group. Hyperactive children also showed reduced spatial spans on a test of spatial working memory that reflects parietal lobe functioning. Psychological measures showed no interactions between hyperactivity and SLI. Children with ADHD have problems in inhibitory control of attentional selection. SLI and ADHD have different cognitive correlates. [1]

COMMENT. The authors recommend that future studies of SLI and ADHD should include concurrent measures of language, cognition, behavior, and general IQ. To determine differences between the psychological functioning of children with SLI and ADHD subtypes, a larger patient sample is required. ADHD children had both frontostriatal and parietal lobe dysfunction, while SLI patients showed no adverse functioning on non-verbal tests.

Controlled study of Adderall and MPH in ADHD showed that the drugs are comparable in reducing inattention and opposition symptoms in the classroom, but Adderal has a longer duration of action. [2]

Williams D Stott CM Goodyer IM Sahakian BJ Specific language impairment with or without hyperactivity: neuropsychological evidence for frontostriatal dysfunction Dev Med Child Neurol 2000 Jun 42 6 368 375 10.1111/j.1469-8749.2000.tb00114.x 10875521 Pliszka SR Browne RG Olvera RL Wynne SK A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of Adderall and methylphenidate in the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2000 May 39 5 619 626 10.1097/00004583-200007000-00022 10802980