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The worldwide pooled prevalence of psychiatric disorders in children is 13.4%. Studying the prevalence of childhood psychiatric disorders across radically different economic systems and social structures could indicate universal factors leading to their development. The prevalence of childhood psychiatric disorders in a mixed-subsistence foraging society has not been studied. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Development and Well-Being Assessment were used to compare the prevalence of behavioural symptoms and psychiatric disorders in Hadza children aged 5–16 years (n = 113) to a nationally representative sample from England (n = 18,029) using a cross-sectional study design. Emotional problems, conduct problems and hyperactivity were lower in the Hadza children. Prosocial behaviour and peer problems were higher in Hadza children. 3.6% of Hadza children met the criteria for a psychiatric disorder compared to 11.8% of English children. All psychiatric disorders in Hadza children were co-morbid with autism spectrum disorder. No child from the Hadza group met the criteria for an emotional, behaviour or eating disorder. Further work should study the factors which lead to the different prevalence of psychiatric disorders in Hadza children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is recognised that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and personality disorders (PDs) have a variety of factors in common, the exact nature of the relationship between ASD and the PDs remains unclear. The overlapping symptom profiles and complexities in developmental trajectories in ASD and PDs can lead to diagnostic uncertainty and to challenges in determining differential diagnoses. Features of ASD and PD can be misattributed and easily lead to misdiagnosis or missed diagnoses in patients who have a diagnosis of ASD, which may impact therapeutic pathways. Since differentiating between ASD and PD is such a complex task with implications for therapeutic approaches, it has been argued that there is a need for additional understanding and markers for facilitating diagnostic procedures. There is an urgent need to explore how clinicians make diagnostic decisions and the challenges they face in forming diagnostic conclusions. Where overlaps exist, it is important to consider how clinicians interpret and attribute certain characteristics within the context of ASD and/or PD diagnoses. It is now recognised that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and personality disorders (PDs) have a variety of factors in common. However, the exact nature of the relationship between ASD and the PDs remains unclear. The overlapping symptom profiles of ASD and PDs can lead to diagnostic uncertainty – features of ASD and PD can be misattributed and easily lead to misdiagnosis of ASD patients. Since differentiating between ASD and PD is such a complex task, it has been argued that there is a need for additional understanding and markers for facilitating diagnostic procedures. There is an urgent need to explore, first, how clinicians make diagnostic decisions and, second, how to effectively deal with the challenges and difficulties they face when making decisions. Also, where there are clear overlaps, how do clinicians choose how to attribute labels in order to understand the person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The association between attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is widely reported, with support for the role of epilepsy, yet the mechanisms underlying the association across development are unclear. The Tuberous Sclerosis 2000 Study is a prospective longitudinal study of TSC. In Phase 1 of the study, baseline measures of epilepsy, cortical tuber load, and mutation were obtained with 125 children ages 0–16 years. In Phase 2, at an average of 8 years later, ADHD symptoms were measured for 81 of the participants. Structural equation modeling revealed an indirect pathway from genetic mutation, to cortical tuber load, to epileptic spasm severity in infancy, to ADHD symptoms in middle childhood and adolescence, in addition to a pathway linking current seizure severity to ADHD symptoms. Findings were retained when intelligence quotient (IQ) was entered as a correlated factor. The findings support a cascading developmental pathway to ADHD symptoms mediated by early‐onset and severe epilepsy in the first 2 years of life. This warrants detailed investigation of seizure characteristics and cognitive and behavioral sequelae associated with ADHD from early in life, to further the understanding of the association between ADHD and early‐onset epilepsy across syndromic and non‐syndromic populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research identifies highly variable prevalence estimates for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), particularly between community and clinical samples, warranting quantitative meta-analyses to investigate the true prevalence of ASD in children and adolescents with ADHD. Methods: Studies were identified through a systematic literature search of PsycINFO, MEDLINE and Web of Science through January 2018. Twenty-two publications met inclusion criteria (total N = 61 985). Two random effects meta-analyses were conducted: (1) to identify the proportion of children and adolescents with ADHD that met criteria for ASD; and (2) to compare the severity of dimensionally-measured ASD symptomology in children and adolescents with and without ADHD. Results: The overall pooled effect for children and adolescents with ADHD who met threshold for ASD was 21%. There was no significant difference between community samples (19%) and clinical samples (24%) or between US studies v. those from other countries. Children and adolescents with ADHD had substantially more dimensionally-measured ASD traits compared with those who did not have ADHD (d = 1.23). Conclusion: The findings provide further evidence that ADHD and ASD are associated in nature. Clinical and research implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Actigraphy, an objective measure of motor activity, reliably indexes increased movement levels in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and may be useful for diagnosis and treatment-monitoring. However, actigraphy has not been examined in complex neurodevelopmental conditions. This study used actigraphy to objectively measure movement levels in individuals with a complex neurodevelopmental genetic disorder, tuberous sclerosis (TSC). Thirty participants with TSC (11–21 years, 20 females, IQ = 35–108) underwent brief (approximately 1 h) daytime actigraph assessment during two settings: movie viewing and cognitive testing. Multiple linear regressions were used to test associations between movement measurements and parent-rated ADHD symptoms. Correlations were used to examine associations between actigraph measures and parent-rated ADHD symptoms and other characteristics of TSC (symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), intellectual ability (IQ), epilepsy severity, cortical tuber count). Higher movement levels during movies were associated with higher parent-rated ADHD symptoms. Higher ADHD symptoms and actigraph-measured movement levels during movies were positively associated with ASD symptoms and negatively associated with IQ. Inter-individual variability of movement during movies was not associated with parent-rated hyperactivity or IQ but was negatively associated with ASD symptoms. There were no associations with tuber count or epilepsy. Our findings suggest that actigraph-measured movement provides a useful correlate of ADHD in TSC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]