ADHD Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about ADHD, including details on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, drugs, treatment, symptoms. | ||||||||
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Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and fluctuating asymmetry in another college sample.Stevenson JC, Everson PM, Williams DC, Hipskind G, Mahoney ER, Mehler M, Cawley M, Chamberlin W, Watts L Department of Anthropology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, 98225, USA. jcstvnsn@cc.wwu.edu Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) represents a developmental lag that may be reflected in fluctuating asymmetry (FA), i.e., differences from perfect symmetry in traits that display bilateral symmetry. Burton et al. (2003 Am. J. Hum. Biol. 15:601-619) found a statistical trend for FA to increase (as dermatoglyphic index or as total index) as the behavioral measure for AD/HDness (Rasch logit values derived from the Wender Utah Rating Scale, or WURS) increased in males but not in females. The objective here was to do a similar study in an independently collected sample of college students (n = 222; 61 male, 161 female) not selected for AD/HD, looking at FA vs. symptoms for AD/HD based on Rasch versions of responses to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV) (Barkley and Murphy 1998 Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, New York: Guilford Press, p. 95-96) and the more comparable shortened WURS. FAs were lowest for body and ear height, and highest for eye width and nose width, and ranged from 0.01 +/- 0.001 (mean +/- SE) for foot and ankle widths to 0.13 +/- 0.01 in eye and nose widths for both sexes; the sexes did not differ significantly. Males displayed higher AD/HD symptom rates overall. There was a significant correlation between body FA and the WURS measure in females after Bonferroni correction (P = 0.002, r(2) = 0.058). Thus, AD/HD symptoms levels increased with an increase in body FA in female college students not selected for AD/HD. Published 27 April 2006 in Am J Hum Biol, 18(3): 402-14.
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